


The Telling of One Billion Ghost Stories

by rallamajoop



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHoLic
Genre: Acid Tokyo, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-08-29 16:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 91,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8497498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop
Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world populated by a few surviving gangs of angry, desperate humans, and a few billion angry, desperate ghosts, Watanuki's powers take on a new significance.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Some history**  
>  Back in 2007, I put up [a request meme on the doumakiwatanuki LJ comm](http://doumekiwatanuki.livejournal.com/303764.html) asking folks to throw me ideas for short _xxxHolic_ (and/or _Tsubasa: RC_ ) AU fics. I wound up picking eight different ideas to write up, most of which became ficlets of a few hundred to a couple of thousand words, and a few of which even became multi-parters (you can read the lot [here on AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/467568), or follow the links from that LJ post). [One of the last](http://doumekiwatanuki.livejournal.com/303764.html?thread=2607252#t2607252) suggestions I received - and one of my favourites - was a concept for a post-apocalyptic universe, pitched by lunargeography. I wrote two scenes initially, then began expanding the idea into a full-length story - and by the 90,000 word point, it's safe to say it got away from me a little. 
> 
> The original fic was posted to my LJ in short, weekly chapters in unbetaed draft form back in 2007-2008. The plan was always to get the finished story properly betaed and reposted in full, but given both the length and various other distractions vying for my attention, the final betaing and revisions never did get completed. This many years on, it still seems a crying shame not having the thing posted properly somewhere, so I've committed to giving it one last proper round of revisions before putting it up as is. It probably won't be as clean as it could be - but given that even the draft version managed to get its share of readers back in the day, it hopefully ought to suffice.
> 
> At this point, I have a decent first-quarter-or-so just about ready to go, and I'm going to aim for getting at least three chapters posted per week. Hopefully, that'll be enough to keep the momentum going with the rest of the re-editing left to do. 
> 
> For reference, the two original scenes from the post-apoc universe can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/467568/chapters/837443) and [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/467568/chapters/837446). The first has been reworked into the current prologue, while the second takes place about mid-way through the story.  
> 
>  **In-Universe Notes**  
>  Worldbuilding borrows heavily from _Tsubasa_ 's Acid Tokyo arc, particularly in regards to the importance of the acid rain and the populations of the Diet Building and the Tower, but isn't strictly set in that universe. Other characters and concepts have been borrowed from around the CLAMP multiverse in the classic _Tsubasa_ fashion. I haven't tagged everyone to appear, as some are very brief indeed (and one or two quite spoilery), but it's safe to assume anyone with a name (and a few without) came from somewhere in CLAMP-land. But if you're familiar only with _xxxHolic_ and _Tsubasa_ , you should still get on fine.
> 
>  **Warnings/Content Notes**  
>  Though most of the worst nastiness in this story happens off-screen, given the setting, references to character death, some abuse and (occasionally) rape can be expected. Some mild gore and violence (though probably somewhat less than the worst of series like _Tsubasa_ and _X_ ). Choose-not-to-warn selected to cover all bases.

Regardless of how Fye might have told the tale in later years, Doumeki hadn't left that morning in any real anticipation of meeting a living legend. Give or take a few colourful details, stories about gangs like this one followed a familiar pattern – nomads who travelled further and faster than ordinary gang would risk, moving from shelter to shelter, always finding fuel before their reserves ran dry, guided as if by the hand of fate. What mattered about this iteration of the rumour was that the gang's migratory habits had brought them far enough to make camp on the edge of _their_ own home territory. Whoor what it was that guided them was trivia; Doumeki left at first light that morning on a mission to discover firstly _if_ this new gang existed at all.

There was nothing supernatural about the clues guiding Doumeki when he turned his bike north-east: the sound of gunfire carried far over the plains on a clear day. By the time he was close enough to make out the evidence of a motley assortment of vehicles surrounding two low buildings – aging grey masonry barely distinguishable from the earth around them – everything had long since fallen deathly quiet.

A less suspicious man might have already begun to wonder then, but by and large Doumeki had always found it preferable to approach legends in much the same way as all other uncertain quantities. This involved a loaded gun and no assumptions.

* * *

The roof of the nearer building had fallen in, likely long years before the gang arrived to make camp here. In the doorway of the other, a man lay face-down in the dirt, shot in the back at least three times in the act of escaping. Doumeki didn't stop to check for a pulse.

Inside, much of the room remained shrouded in shadow. Someone had nailed boards over the windows at some time in the indefinite past, what remained of them badly acid-eaten and rotted full of holes. Light leaked reluctantly in through the gaps to illuminate the room in patches; what wasn't lucky enough to fall beneath an intruding ray largely didn't invite closer inspection. If the one survivor who sat crouched on the floor hadn't startled so badly at the sound of his footsteps, it might have taken several passes over the room before Doumeki saw him at all.

Doumeki had a gun trained on him almost before he knew why. The survivor stared back with an expression that suggested that nothing this intruder could do to him with it could make his day any worse.

"Let me guess," said the stranger, giving up his staring contest with the gun. "You're here because of some crazy story about some kind of treasure-hunter." His voice walked the line between sanity and hysteria with the precision of a sniper, something about it gave Doumeki the unsettling feeling there was a script for this scene he hadn't been given.

"Followed the gunfire," he said, shouldering his gun. That and the screaming. Mostly the screaming, really.

The stranger would have been an odd sight even without his surroundings. He couldn't have been more than Doumeki's age, approaching the boundary that divided 'boy' from 'man' but not yet past it. Bad light could not entirely conceal the ugly shape of a darkening bruise spreading over his cheek, but of all his features, his eyes what gave him away. Even partially hidden behind his glasses – and those were rare enough, worth a fortune to the right people. He was scrawny too, but so was everyone these days.

"Stories," said Doumeki, frowning. "You mean the ones about the April Fool? That's you?"

The boy made a choking noise. "It's not any of _them_ , if that's what you mean," he indicated the rest of the room with a shuddering movement of his shoulders. He looked up just about enough to make eye contact with Doumeki's shoes. "You'll be the first one in two years who hasn't had to steal me from another gang," he added, though Doumeki couldn't tell quite how he felt about this. He didn't look like he'd been crying, though he did give the impression it might have been a relief to him if he could have been.

"Let's go outside," Doumeki suggested. Even with the worst of the room hidden in shadows, the smell was starting to get to him.

The boy nodded without really looking up. He was well enough to stand, though he was shaking badly – but when Doumeki stepped forward to offer his support, it only got him a glare which lasted until he stepped back again.

Outside, the air was fresher, early morning light not yet bright enough for the true desolation of the landscape to be evident, but if anything, the gang's sole survivor seemed only to hunch further in on himself.

"Well?" he said after a bit, probably more because he was sick of being stared at than because he really wanted to talk. "What do you want to know?"

"The stories," said Doumeki, because the question was inevitable, "are they true?"

"Which ones?" the boy didn't-quite-snap.

Doumeki thought about it. He would have been happier to let this 'April Fool' explain himself without prompting, but under the circumstances that didn't entirely seem fair. "The general theme involves you finding a lot of buried treasure."

"It's not as though it's always buried. _Or_ always treasure. But..."

"But?"

The April Fool made the choking sound again, closer to a laugh this time. "They're mostly true." His eyes flickered Doumeki's way suspiciously. "Aren't you going to ask me how I do it?"

"How do you do it?" said Doumeki, playing along.

"The ghosts tell me where they are," said the boy, voice taking on a shrill quality. "If there's one thing I can _always_ find you, it's ghosts." He stopped and gave Doumeki another look – trying to gauge whether it had been decided he was crazy yet. Doumeki kept his expression carefully neutral.

"Ghosts," he echoed.

"That part _is_ in the stories, isn't it?"

It had come up in some versions, but it had also been one of the elements Doumeki had been least willing to grant much credibility. "Your ghosts are that helpful?"

The April Fool's mouth set itself into a thin, hard line. Doumeki took that as a 'no'.

It would be easy enough to believe a gang that had travelled so far to reach such a sad excuse for shelter might be hungry and desperate enough that one argument could bring them to the verge of grabbing for any weapon in reach and turning on anyone who deserved an iota of blame for their predicament. It was easy to imagine it escalating until the second-last man standing took out the last with his dying breath. It was entirely possible that someone who deserved the April Fool's reputation could have been the one camp member who wasn't armed, who would be seen as the least of immediate threats and would come out of the experience with no more than cuts and bruises. It was even possible to imagine that all of the above could happen at once – but there it stopped being quite so easy.

There were far too many questions about all this left unanswered, far too many reasons not to trust this stranger, but this was neither the time nor the place for them. The fact was that even if only a tenth of the stories about the April Fool were true, this was an opportunity his camp could not afford to waste.

"Come on," said Doumeki. "My bike will carry two."

The boy followed him without complaint.


	2. Book 1-1

Stories of the April Fool had arrived at Doumeki's camp on the lips of travelling traders like Ryuhou and his partners, who would appear at the boundary fence offering rare goods and trinkets for barter, and news and rumour for food and shelter, vanishing again off into the north or the south come morning. The stories said the April Fool was a boy born with one blue eye and one an empty white. They said that with his left eye he saw the land of the living, and with his right he saw the land of the dead.

"I see everything with the left one," said the boy, who'd admitted to the name 'Watanuki Kimihiro' with minimal prompting on the long journey back to camp. "I'm blind on the other side. I used to see ghosts just fine with both eyes before it happened."

He didn't mention how. Doumeki decided not to pry.

"Why the title?" Doumeki wondered.

"I was born on the first of April," said Watanuki, still sullen but marginally more comfortable on these topics. At Doumeki's confused look, he added, "They used to call it 'April Fool's day'. It was supposed to be some kind of joke."

 _A bad one_ , Doumeki thought. Surely no-one had associated the first of April with anything light-hearted in his lifetime.

"Appropriate," he ventured.

Watanuki gave a faint snort of a laugh that was almost a sob.

* * *

Like most of his generation, Doumeki had grown up in the deadlands and knew no other life. If his parents had ever applied for two or even one of the scarce and coveted positions under the protection of the Complexes when they'd first sprung up across the landscape in the early years After, they'd been refused and left to survive outside as best they could, and for his own part Doumeki was not inclined to feel much loss. The place he'd called home these last few years was a small camp known only as 'Kurogane's camp' to residents and outsiders alike, located in the long-disputed territory that separated Diet Building from Tower. In a better world there would have been no question about bringing a straggler like Watanuki back with him, but in reality, for a camp of less than half a dozen people, an extra mouth to feed was a gamble to be weighed carefully against how much weight the newcomer could be expected to pull. The only cruelty would be to let him imagine anything less.

Nowadays, even the term 'deadlands' was becoming closer to being synonymous with 'lands' by the year, with hopes of finding anywhere in the world beyond the end of the acid-ravaged plains receding to the territory of third-hand rumour or less, with the days Before fading into memory a generation past, and with what remained of it in the domain of the Complexes scarcely more accessible to outsiders than the past itself. The nearest to Doumeki's home camp was a half-day's travel away, where a giant glass dome and round-the-clock security protected just enough arable land to support, by safe calculation, exactly five hundred and twenty-four men, women and children. Not so long ago, a good harvest on the inside had meant there would be food to spare for trade with the deadlands gangs – salvaged tech from the junk piles and raw metals fetched a particularly good price. In more recent years, the insiders had perfected the art of recycling – not just materials but the air, the water, probably even the people themselves – to a point where little went in or out anymore. They had a way of reclaiming the deadlands now in small increments at a time. Once in Doumeki's memory they'd expanded past their borders, new domes springing up like slow-growing mushrooms, workers and guards swarming like bees over those new sections every moment of the long months they took to finish. But wherever they'd sourced the materials from, they'd done it without the help of anyone outside.

In its day, the Complex's legendary defences had inspired enough fear in the deadlands gangs to be a stabilising influence; even after closing its doors it left its mark on the region. By then, other powers had taken the opportunity to settle themselves in the neighbourhood, giving the area an infamy that was unrivalled almost anywhere in the country, and they kept the region from reverting to the worst disputed gang-land. Nowadays one could go weeks at a time without being reminded the domes existed at all.

Thanks to Fye, Doumeki had heard more about life on the inside than most people, since Fye would sometimes speak of it when the mood took him. Doumeki half-suspected he embellished a lot of it when he got bored though, so he'd never been sure exactly how much to believe. What Fye was doing on the outside at all was mystery enough – he was still young and healthy and patently not useless, and therefore excluded from any of the categories traditionally understood to be at risk of exile. Criminals were sometimes thrown out too, of course, but as long as it was Fye's technical skills beyond any other factor which allowed their camp to survive out here, it was hard to think of any past crime so horrible it could have mattered to his campmates, had they even wanted to know.

Besides Fye there was Kurogane himself, and if he'd never been named leader in any official sense, his decisions held weight, and when he gave an instruction they others obeyed it. Doumeki was second-in-command by similar token – the suggestions he made were good and Kurogane rarely argued with them. Doumeki could hit a moving target at two hundred yards too, which always did no harm to one's command status.

The remaining members of the camp went only by the names of Syaoran and Sakura, both a year or two younger than Doumeki, though they'd been here longer than he. Over time, Doumeki had come to learn that Sakura was stronger than she looked (on the day he'd pressed a gun into her hands and taught her to shoot, those hands hadn't shaken – though she had no taste for violence and preferred not to carry a weapon at all, given the choice). But she was nonetheless such a pretty, fragile thing it was hard to imagine she'd have lasted long in this world alone. The reason she'd survived was that Syaoran would rip anyone who hurt her limb from limb – literally, if he felt it necessary, and she wasn't there to see. Syaoran fought like no-one else Doumeki had ever seen; easily proficient with any gun he could lay hands on, but it was with hand-to-hand combat or with blade weapons that he truly excelled. The boy could twist and strike like a snake; he would go into fits of such intense concentration that it scared enemies and allies alike.

Where he'd come from or where he'd learned to fight like that Doumeki had no idea, even Syaoran himself seemed hazy on the details of his past. All he remembered for certain was that Sakura was important, and he took to the task of protecting her with the single-mindedness of a man who had nothing else in the universe that was real to him. If Sakura knew anything more she'd never said and no-one asked. And if either of them ever put Doumeki in the mind of the taller tales Fye was known to tell when the kids were out of earshot – those about darker measures the Complex's deepest laboratories would take in the name of safeguarding their own survival – then it wasn't more than speculation, and he kept it to himself.

Syaoran's main duty around the camp was guard work. Though in recent years he'd come far enough to trust Sakura to the care of his campmates in his absence – sometimes for hours at a time – when he was needed for jobs that took him further away, she'd always be the first person he went to see when he got back. For Fye to venture far afield was even more unusual. Most of his day was spent in the endless cycle of checking and repairing the nest of solar panels in the centre of their camp. The power went to two places – one was the electrified fence that ran around the perimeter, to catch anything Syaoran might miss. The other one was far more valuable, and only seldom seen outside the lab.

Though one could hardly suggest he'd fit right in, the April Fool could scarcely make the campsite he was headed for much more exceptional than it was already.

* * *

Kurogane was neither greatly impressed nor greatly bothered by Watanuki when he and Doumeki finally arrived back at camp. He hadn't kept their camp alive this long by taking just anyone in, but he hadn't done it by wasting even unlikely opportunities either. What he was clear about was that their newest member was going to be Doumeki's responsibility, and he got that across without uttering more than half a dozen words on the subject. Kurogane had more immediate concerns. "Anything left back there we can salvage?"

That was the world they lived in – a camp full of bodies was a camp with no guards and little chance other scavengers would beat them back. If Doumeki hadn't taken their lightest vehicle to save valuable fuel, he'd have needed a far better excuse than one crazy psychic boy for not grabbing every useful looking item he could carry. "Didn't stay to check, but whatever happened finished fast."

Behind them, Watanuki and Syaoran studied each other with unapologetic suspicion.

"Give me the map," said Kurogane. "I'll take the kid, expect us back by midday. Show your new friend around." He didn't add 'but keep him away from Chi until we know more about him', because Doumeki wasn't stupid.

On the way to the lab, Watanuki looked around the camp with an expression of surprise just breaking through that baseline suspicion he seemed to direct at everything that moved and quite a few things that didn't. _April Fool_ , thought Doumeki – always waiting to see what trick the universe was going to play on him next.

Fye wasn't immediately visible behind the shapes of the nearest solar panels, but Doumeki could hear the sound of tools clanking against tools somewhere, and as the sound of their footsteps came closer, a fluffy white-haired head topped with a pair of elaborate goggles stuck up from behind the nearest panel.

"Back already, Shizuka?" said Fye, pushing the goggles up on to his forehead. Kurogane had always maintained they looked ridiculous on him. Doumeki had never had much of an opinion either way. "Oh, we have a guest?"

At the word 'guest', a second head popped up from the behind the panel, around the side this time as its owner was a little short to see over the top. The combined puppet-show effect was almost comical. Sakura peered curiously at Watanuki, then glanced at Fye, who was remembering his own brand of manners by this point and herding the both of them around so they could meet their guest properly.

"Well!" said Fye, taking a good look at Watanuki. "Could this really be...?"

"The April Fool?" said Doumeki. "So he says."

"Well, well, well," said Fye. He gave Doumeki a smug look. "You did know I was kidding, didn't you?"

"You thought you were," said Doumeki, but he'd already lost Fye's attention.

"How extraordinary!" he was saying to Watanuki. "I'm Fye D. Flowright, an honour to meet you. My charming companion here goes by Sakura." No last name, but that was hardly remarkable nowadays. Sakura bowed slightly in greeting.

"W-Watanuki Kimihiro," said Watanuki awkwardly. Doumeki guessed he wasn't expected to introduce himself very often.

"Is he staying?" asked Sakura.

"Could be," said Doumeki. Watanuki shot him a look.

"Don't let our other boys scare you too much, Kimihiro," said Fye lightly, waving a hand. "We're all really quite civilised around here."

"Ah," said Watanuki uncertainly. He still wasn't relaxed by any stretch of the imagination, but under the combined assault of Fye and Sakura he was thawing a little. They tended to have that effect on people.

"Well, if you're showing him around, we won't keep you," said Fye, before the silence could get uncomfortable. He gave the panel they'd appeared behind an affectionate pat. "We've still got a chance to get today's problem unit working again before sunset if we don't waste time. The others have gone out?"

"He came with a dead camp," said Doumeki, indicating Watanuki with a shrug. "The others are there for salvage. May need refuelling for a second trip later if it goes well."

"I'll keep it in mind," said Fye. "Now, back to work for us." He and Sakura disappeared behind the panel once more.

There wasn't much else to show. The solar panels were the camp's main attraction; once Watanuki had been warned about the security fence – easily mistaken for a low barricade of piled junk until an intruder was close enough to discover first-hand how much current Fye kept running through all that wire – the job was as good as done. While the collection of huts that housed Kurogane's camp were in much better repair than those at the camp where Watanuki had been found, they were carved from a similar mould – small, grey and acid-smoothed around the corners. By the time Doumeki had pointed out Fye's lab (off-limits) and a couple of other buildings they used for storage and to sleep in he was more or less done. He'd have to drag out another mattress later, but there wasn't any great rush. It had been a while since Doumeki had had to share his sleeping space with anyone, but keeping an eye on Watanuki took priority over privacy.

The boy himself was still looking around the camp as though he expected something to leap out and bite him any second. Doumeki supposed he should probably have told Watanuki no-one here would hit him for making mistakes, but he wasn't feeling that charitable.

"This is really everyone?" said Watanuki, when they were done. Doumeki couldn't blame him – five people to any camp which survived half as long as theirs had was exceptional. Even allowing that hadn't always been the case.

"Want me to introduce you to the gravestones around the other side?" Doumeki suggested, assuming the hint would get through.

Watanuki gave a hollow but genuine laugh. "No thank you, I'm sure if any of them want to talk to me, they'll find me on their own," and Doumeki paused a moment at the discovery of a joke he hadn't noticed he was making.

* * *

It took Syaoran and Kurogane two trips to bring back everything that was salvageable from the dead camp, counting usable vehicles, weapons and equipment. There was no need for a third. The gang had been on the move long enough that they'd lost anything that couldn't be tossed on a truck in a hurry long ago, and the camp where Doumeki had found Watanuki showed no sign of having been occupied for more than a matter of days. There wasn't so much as a scrap of anything edible, and hadn't been for a while, going by the enthusiasm with which Watanuki tucked into the first meal they gave him (slightly rancid though it was).

"Did you look at any of the bodies?" Syaoran asked Doumeki when they got back. "The only ones with bullet wounds were the ones who'd been shot by one of their friends in the confusion. I've never seen anything like it."

Doumeki wasn't going to ask how Syaoran told things like that from a room full of dead people. Concepts like squeamishness were lost on Syaoran where Sakura wasn't involved; a room full of dead people held no fears for him. "Didn't stick around long. It sounded bad from outside, but it was over before I got close."

"The new guy – Kimihiro – he was there for it, right?" said Syaoran. "What did he say happened?"

"He'll probably tell us ghosts did it," said Doumeki on a whim.

Syaoran looked skeptical, but it was mixed with just enough doubt to suggest he might almost be ready to believe it.

The bodies of the dead men they'd left where they were. Burial or cremation was a privilege for people the finder knew and cared about, and food at Kurogane's camp was not yet scarce enough that the human remains would need to be put to any other purpose. Before the day was out, scavengers of the inhuman variety could be counted on to arrive to clean up what was left at the campsite.

The so called 'deadlands' had never been all dead. As early as the first year After, the grass began taking root wherever it could get a hold. It was thick, wiry, Spinifex-like stuff, not remotely pleasant to walk through without thick boots on. It was also far too poisonous to eat no matter what you did with it. This didn't seem to bother any of the small species of sharp-toothed, rat-like mammals that grazed on it, but as long as they were well fed they were poisonous too. You had to get a fair way up the food chain before you reached anything edible by human standards, and even then, if whatever you brought down had had a recent meal of its own, it could still be poisonous enough that trying to digest it became a wasted effort. The one small mercy was that the poison broke down quickly once anything that could stomach it had stopped ingesting more, but waiting for that to happen could mean guarding a carcass for hours or days on end. If you waited too long, the meat went bad or attracted worse predators; if you waited less, there was the danger there'd still be so much poison that you'd wind up very ill – or worse. When human flesh started to look appetising by comparison, it wasn't for the wrong reasons.

* * *

Dragging the mattress out of storage and into his room was a task that Doumeki undertook single-handedly, but under Watanuki's awkward scrutiny. The April Fool obviously wasn't built for heavy lifting, but he just as obviously wouldn't need to be, given his job description.

The mattress fell into place, briefly clouding the room in a large puff of dust. Doumeki brushed his hands off on his pants and gave Watanuki a considering look. "What else do you do?"

"What else?" Watanuki echoed.

"Skills, I mean," Doumeki clarified. "Anything else we can use."

"Oh," said Watanuki. It didn't seem like this was a question he'd ever been asked before. "I can clean a gun or bandage up an arm – the usual stuff, I guess. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out how the tech stuff I find works."

"We've got Fye for that," Doumeki reminded him.

"Oh," said Watanuki again, sounding strangely disappointed. "That's about it then. Mostly people just stick me in a corner and act like I'm cursed and it could be contagious. I've never learnt much else." He looked at the mattress gingerly, like someone deciding whether sitting down was worth the effort.

"How bad is it?" asked Doumeki.

Watanuki shot him a scathing look that suggested he wasn't joining this conversation until Doumeki started making sense.

"Injuries," Doumeki clarified.

"Can't you see?" said Watanuki testily, indicating the bruise on his cheek. It was dark and swollen, and Doumeki wondered briefly how different Watanuki would look once it had faded.

"You're telling me that's it?"

"It's nothing serious."

"You've been walking strangely since we met," said Doumeki, losing patience. "Watching how you sit too."

"It's not serious!" Watanuki repeated.

"So whatever happened to everyone else in that room..." Doumeki prompted.

Watanuki gave in. Under his shirt there were two more bruises spreading darkly over his skin. Watanuki admitted to a third on his thigh, which he claimed was no worse than the others, and Doumeki took his word for it. They had to be more painful than their bearer would admit, but there was nothing that shouldn't heal naturally within a few weeks at most.

Doumeki raised an eyebrow. "This was all it took?"

"I told you it was nothing," Watanuki complained, self-conscious without the protection of his shirt. "This is _normal!_ It didn't get bad in there until they brought the knife out." The last part came out quieter than the rest.

Watanuki's body was conspicuously free of knife marks. "It got bad fast after that?" Doumeki suggested.

Watanuki turned his eyes downwards and clammed up again in a manner that was fast becoming familiar. Doumeki frowned. He hadn't asked what happened to the gang in so many words, but the question had hung over him since they moment they met. Watanuki was rapidly running out of excuses for his silence on the matter.

He didn't think he liked Watanuki's idea of 'normal' either.

Doumeki finished examining the bruises and stood up. He nodded towards the mattress. "Lie down, see if you can find a position you can hold comfortably. I'll check with Sakura whether we still have anything we can use as a cold compress."

He was already making his way out as he said it, so he never saw Watanuki's look of surprise.

* * *

People around here went to bed early and got up at dawn. There was nothing worth staying up for, and no way of making light that didn't drain some important resource or other. But sometime after midnight, Watanuki got out of bed and went outside. Doumeki watched him through one cracked eyelid, then followed as quietly as he could move.

Outside, only a dozen or so paces from the doorway, Watanuki stopped and stood, staring out into the deadlands beyond the security fence, rubbing his upper arms with his hands to keep warm. After a minute he'd still shown no signs of moving any further, so Doumeki accepted that he wasn't watching an attempt at anything subversive and said, "Oi," loudly enough to be heard.

Watanuki whipped around sharply, but relaxed a bit when he saw it was only Doumeki. "Oh, it's you. I didn't mean to wake you up."

"I'm a light sleeper," said Doumeki.

Watanuki glanced away, unsurprised. Doumeki had just long enough to develop the impression he was gathering himself up for something before he started to say, "Before... you asked me whether the ghosts were always helpful."

"I did," Doumeki agreed.

" _Most_ of them are. You wouldn't believe how many supply caches there are out there that only dead men know about. And _some_ of them like me enough to lead me to them But there are other ones," he went on, his voice getting faster the longer he spoke, "and I know this part isn't in any of the stories you've heard, but it really matters that you understand it, because that last lot never did – and look where they wound up! – _sometimes_ the ghosts don't help. Even dead people make mistakes. They remember wrong, or they lead me somewhere where there used to be food but it's all gone rotten or been taken already. Sometimes – sometimes they even do it on purpose." On the last word his voice dropped to a hiss. "Some of them think it's _funny_. They lead me for days on end through the worst country to get to places where they know there's nothing to find at all! That's how it is, and I swear to any god anyone still believes in I can't ever tell which one it's going to be."

"Your gang got angry at you for that," Doumeki guessed. The boy let out a weak laugh.

"If I was lucky they only got angry at me. But the ghosts... the strongest ones – sometimes they can even move things. You understand what I'm saying, right? Enough to _attack_ someone! And sometimes, they get really, really protective of me.

"I don't mind being hit," said the April Fool, a hysterical note rising steadily in his voice. "I mean, I don't _like_ it, I'm not that crazy yet, but I can deal with it. It's hardly any worse than what everyone else goes through around here. _But_ , so help me, I _do not want_ to have to see anything like what happened today _ever again!_ "

Doumeki digested this explanation quietly and wondered if he ought to be more surprised. He supposed he'd been expecting something like this ever since he'd seen the haunted look in Watanuki's eyes, when they'd first met at the dead gang's last camp.

Doumeki hadn't believed for a moment that this boy could have been the one who killed everyone else in that room. The fact that disbelief showed so clearly on his face may have been the greater part of why Watanuki hadn't been any more panicky to begin with. But any reasonable person could have told you he sounded like a madman – and Doumeki knew far too well that crazy people could pull off crazy and terrible things when pushed. Even slightly-built boys like this one.

But then... in a world populated by a few surviving gangs of angry, desperate humans, and six billion angry, desperate ghosts, who was he to say what was crazy, what was a hope they couldn't afford to waste?

"Look, I'm not running away or anything," said Watanuki, interrupting his thoughts. "Where would I have to run to? I get traded back and forth between gangs often enough without encouraging it. But I have this thing where I just don't _sleep_ after I've been at the scene of a massacre. I came out to get some air."

In context, Doumeki had no reason to question that.

Watanuki sighed. "I'll be out a while longer; I'll come back in on my own when I feel like I can sleep again. You don't have to..."

"I'm staying out here as long as you do," said Doumeki.

Watanuki gave in. "Whatever you prefer. Don't expect me to apologise for keeping you up. Even if I should probably be grateful I'm not being ordered back inside," he added in a lower voice.

Doumeki sat down on the stump of an old wall to wait while Watanuki turned back around to stare out into whatever part of the deadlands might have held fascination for a boy who spoke to the dead. In the moonlight, the slim shape of his body and the torn edges of his clothes took on an ethereal quality, almost like Doumeki may have been looking at a ghost himself.

It never occurred to Doumeki to wonder whether the presence of someone like himself might have been more patronising or comforting that night, but after an hour, Watanuki made good on his claim and came back inside with barely a word.


	3. Book 1-2

Despite a number of half-hearted protests to the contrary, Watanuki visibly winced so many times in the process of getting up the following morning that Doumeki got sick of it and told him to lie back down again and stay there, venturing out to find breakfast alone. Sakura took pity on their guest at once when she heard what state he was in and immediately volunteered to bring him food and see if she could do anything to make him feel better. Of course, Syaoran could hardly have left her in there all morning with a stranger without personally being there to keep an eye on things, so the task of border patrol fell to Doumeki for that day. It was probably about his turn anyway.

Kurogane joined him later and they talked for a while in the usual manner that had them both exchanging as few words as possible. Patrolling should have been Syaoran's job and keeping an eye on their new guest Doumeki's, but the Watanuki's presence had already managed to rearrange their plans, even so slightly, and neither of them were pleased by it. It would all have been much simpler if they only knew for sure Watanuki was dangerously insane—at least then what had to be done with him would have been clear.

When Doumeki went back in after Sakura had left, Watanuki was still lying down but looked more at ease.

"Feeling better?" Doumeki inquired.

"I told you, this is nothing!" Watanuki replied. "I've been through whole supply missions feeling worse than this."

Nevertheless, Doumeki could see the toll of those supply missions had not been 'nothing' by any stretch, and Watanuki appreciated the opportunity to rest more than he was letting on.

"Did you tell Sakura the same?" Doumeki asked, and Watanuki feel briefly silent.

"She seems like a sweet girl," he offered quietly, after a bit, the subtext of the simple statement hanging heavily over the room. This wasn't a world that had much use for sweet girls.

"No-one here would ever lay a hand on her," said Doumeki firmly. After a moment's thought, in the interests of accuracy, he added, "If they did, Syaoran would rip it off."

Even so strangely worded, the reassurance made Watanuki relax a little. "I think I gathered that," he said, with the faintest trace in his voice of something that might have been humour. "Are they siblings?"

"Unlikely," said Doumeki, and left it at that.

By dinner that evening, Fye had decided to take to the breaking of any remaining ice with a sledgehammer.

"So, Kimihiro," he began, as soon as they were all a few bites into whatever monstrosity they were eating that day, "Any good stories to tell?"

"Stories?" Watanuki echoed, visibly confused.

"There's nothing like a good campfire story," said Fye, oblivious to the lack of similar enthusiasm from anyone else present, "but the five of us have all been here so long we must know all of each other's stories by now." He looked at Watanuki expectantly.

Watanuki fidgeted nervously. He must have been out of practice at dealing with anyone as friendly as Fye—if he'd ever even met anyone so friendly at all, which was unlikely. "But—I really don't know any stories. I'm sorry."

"How about telling us something real then?" suggested Fye, undeterred. "Someone who has ghosts leading them on treasure-hunts across the countryside all the time must have at least a story or two to tell."

Watanuki hesitated. Doumeki could sympathise to a degree; it was terribly hard to tell whether Fye was being genuine or mocking behind that smile, and Watanuki would be venturing into territory which most people treated with superstition or fear. An innocent request for a tale could just as easily be a much less innocent attempt to find holes in his story. He glanced at Doumeki apprehensively. Doumeki met his gaze steadily, keeping his expression neutral.

"Well..." Watanuki began, "the last time I got a lead it was to this giant building in an old city. I... there were miles and miles of tunnels to go through to get there. Inside—it was enormous, bigger than this whole camp, but nearly everything was ruined, the roof had fallen in or the floor wasn't safe, or... well, you had to be careful getting through or you would have put your feet somewhere that wasn't stable. But there was one corner where nothing was damaged. There were all these, um, shelves of electronic things. Lots and lots of each kind. Most of them were broken though, or I couldn't figure out how they worked. I'm sure something there could have been useful, but the gang wasn't interested. They'd been hoping I was leading them to food. They got angry and broke a lot of things, so I never got a good look around."

It was very different, Doumeki had to appreciate, to hear a story about the April Fool in his own, stuttering words—enough to make it start to seem almost possible that the stuff of those stories and the real world could exist together.

"A room full of broken gadgets?" said Fye, openly fascinated.

"Um, yeah," said Watanuki. "I know it doesn't sound like much use, but..."

"Oh, it's plenty of use!" Fye corrected him. "With just a little work, six broken devices can mean three workings ones plus spare parts. Do you think you could find the same place again?"

Watanuki considered, but hung his head. "Sorry, it was over a week ago, and the gang travelled a long way since then. I don't really know where it was, and even if I could get close, I don't know whether I'd be able to find my way in unless I found the same guide again."

Doumeki couldn't help but notice how careful Watanuki was being to avoid saying 'we' with respect to himself and the dead gang, but it was hard to blame him

"Ah well," said Fye. "I'll just have to hope there'll be others like that to come."

"By guide, you mean a ghost, right?" said Syaoran.

"I...suppose so," said Watanuki cautiously. "They're usually ghosts, but this one didn't look as human as most of them. He was short and yellowish, and he had these big ears, and no hair. When he was close by there was this strange feeling—like before a thunderstorm..." he trailed off, looking embarrassed.

"But the other ones look human to you?" Sakura wondered.

"Mostly they do," said Watanuki.

"The supply trips you take people on," said Kurogane, the beginning of a frown creasing his face, "how often can you do them?"

"Um, it depends a lot," said Watanuki, even more nervous under Kurogane's scrutiny. "Sometimes..."

"On average," Kurogane interrupted.

"On average, probably a couple of times a month," said Watanuki, "but... that's counting the times when there isn't anything useful when I find it."

"And you find, what? Other than broken toys."

"Sometimes it's weapons or ammunition or food if I'm lucky. Fuel. Clothing. All kinds of things. Anything the ghosts find that they think might be useful to someone."

"And how often do they get that wrong?" asked Doumeki, spotting the problem without trouble.

"It's less than half the time. It still happens quite a bit though," Watanuki admitted, bringing the conservative estimate of his usefulness down to maybe one find a month, not counting hours lost chasing red herrings.

Kurogane glowered at him, but let the topic rest.

* * *

"You lot must be the strangest gang I've ever seen," Watanuki complained later that night.

"How so?" said Doumeki, though he wasn't really interested. Comparisons between Kurogane's unconventional idea of how to run a campsite and any of the crazed gangs who'd fight over someone like Watanuki didn't have much appeal. "Not used to questions?"

"I'm more familiar with demands," said Watanuki. "Demands and a whole lot of people not wanting to talk to me at all, in case they _catch_ being dead from the other people I talk to."

"Then this is better, right?" said Doumeki simply, unsure what the problem was.

Watanuki made one of his choked laugh-sob noises. "I don't know what 'better' is."

For a moment, something clicked for Doumeki, and there was an image of what it might have been like for someone in Watanuki's position, shuffled from one keeper to the next so often that misery became comforting simply because it couldn't get worse. _Poor bastard_ , he thought, then pushed the thought away.

Watanuki went on talking. "...and between that pale guy and the dark one, I don't know what to think."

"Fye likes everyone," Doumeki explained, "and Kurogane doesn't like anyone. Don't take it personally. As long as you pull your weight he won't abandon you. He just doesn't like surprises."

"No wonder I'm so popular," said Watanuki bitterly.

Doumeki considered reminding him just what circumstances he'd been found in, but thought better of it.

* * *

On the third day after Watanuki joined their camp, the weather forecast turned bad suddenly. Doumeki woke before dawn to find Sakura was urgently prodding him out of sleep. Watanuki rolled over and stared at them sleepily, but accepted Doumeki's insistence it didn't concern him with no more protest than his usual glare.

The other three were already up when Doumeki met them outside.

"How long?" said Kurogane, all the cold tension of the scene mirrored in his face.

"Only a matter of hours," reported Fye. "Chi only got the message minutes ago, there was nothing about it yesterday. This storm must have blown in out of the blue."

"There's time," Doumeki concluded. "Barely."

"Either way, we're taking a risk," said Kurogane. "Either we take the chance of one of our own getting caught out when it hits, or the reputation we've built goes to waste."

"We could spit up—go separately," Syaoran suggested. "I could take the spare bike and go to the Tower, and Shizuka could..."

"I'm not sending anyone to the Tower alone," said Kurogane.

"And that's even if we had a spare," said Fye helplessly, "but the battery still hasn't recharged from the day before yesterday."

"Then we need to go now," said Doumeki. "We can't waste time."

No-one had a better suggestion.

* * *

Watanuki was only too glad not to have been given any reason to get up when Doumeki started moving around. Anything that got people out in the cold hours of the early morning was bound to be best kept far away from. It had never been all bad being considered too valuable to be risked in a fire-fight. Hiding in corners until it all went away was what he did best.

He would have liked to get some more sleep, but his bruises had woken up again soon after he did. After a few fruitless minutes of trying and failing to get comfortable, he gave in and got up properly. At the doorway he hesitated. He couldn't hear anything that suggested things were getting unpleasantly exciting out there, but when he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to be wandering around or not, he'd always found it paid to err on the side of staying put. Still, even if he was wrong, it didn't seem like these people would do worse than glare or yell at him. Surely it couldn't hurt to at least take a peek around the doorway.

On doing so, he found himself face to face with Kurogane on his way in.

"There's an acid storm coming," said Kurogane, apparently oblivious to the way he'd made Watanuki nearly jump out of his skin. "You can make yourself useful and help us get everything covered up."

Well, that was a fair leap from what he'd been expecting to hear. As he followed Kurogane out, Watanuki couldn't help but sneak a glance up at the sky. It looked as clear as it ever was to him, but he choked down his protest before he'd gotten out more than the first, "But..." If the man with the gun said there was a storm coming, there was a storm coming. It surely wasn't Watanuki's place to argue.

Outside, the tech guy and the girl—Fye and Sakura—were dragging large sheets of fabric out from one of the storage buildings. Watanuki recognised it vaguely as one of those synthetic kinds people used to be able to make once upon a time, though he couldn't have told anyone its name. No-one remembered how it was made anymore, but it was safe to say that any remaining bits that had survived the last twenty or more years would survive just about anything else that could be done to them.

"Ah, Kimihiro, a hand over here?" Fye called to him. "We need to get these over all the solar panels before the rain hits."

They were serious about the storm then. There hadn't been even a light acid fall in months as far as he could remember—and it was the sort of thing that stuck in your memory when it happened. Maybe he'd travelled far enough that he'd hit a part of the country where they were still common. That would be just his luck.

There was no sign of the mad kid with the disturbing aura today—or Doumeki.

"They've gone to spread the word," said Kurogane, noticing the way he was glancing around.

"...the word?" Watanuki echoed, not understanding.

"In the interests of good community relations," explained Fye. There was the faintest nervous edge to his voice this morning, but if Watanuki hadn't heard him speaking so much the night before he would never have caught it. "Not to mention the more material value that sort of information is worth in trade to our friends at the Tower and the Diet Building."

For a moment, Watanuki nearly lost his voice in shock. "Tower... _The_ Tower? And the Diet Building? The ones everyone's afraid of? They're near _here?_ "

"Nearby," said Fye lightly. "We're well inside their territory here. But as long as we make ourselves useful now and then, they're happy enough to keep us."

"'Happy' isn't how I'd put it," said Kurogane.

"Well, content not to murder us in our sleep, then," Fye amended. "But it never hurts to be polite."

Watanuki briefly entertained the theory that these people were not people at all, but some new kind of spirit here to torment him with the impression that he was—for the first time ever—the most sane and normal person present.

"Anyway, as long as our boys make good speed, they'll be back well before it hits," said Fye. "But there's no sense in dawdling here either. We'll need these tied down in as many places as we can tie them—we've got strong winds coming in too."

* * *

The Diet Building, closer to their camp than the Tower by well over an hour, was the first stop on Doumeki and Syaoran's way.

It was usually the two of them making these runs nowadays, Kurogane having long since lost all taste for dealing with Fuuma in person. Then again, it was probably no bad thing to present a familiar silhouette on the horizon when approaching the watchtowers of their landlords. Doumeki was level-headed enough not to think about that too hard, but whenever they got near the Diet Building's defence perimeter, he could feel Syaoran tense up in the seat behind him, and the boy's heart rate quicken.

Not for nothing; no-one passed the perimeter without being seen. By the time they were in sight of the entrance, there was a black-clad figure waiting for them a dozen paces outside.

When they swerved to a stop a short distance in front of him, Shiro Kamui did not offer them any greeting.

"Take your hands off your weapons," he instructed. "You should know they're no better than show here."

"You never seem happy to see us," said Syaoran, complying. Spoken to anyone else, this would certainly have come out more argumentative, but Syaoran viewed both Kamui and Fuuma with the sort of reverence even Kurogane barely enjoyed; there was always just the edge of that awe cropping into his voice at times like these. He wasn't easy to impress as a rule, but an impression once made, lasted. Even had he never see how formidable Kamui could be in battle for himself, the fact a boy who appeared barely Doumeki's age could keep a whole colony under his word and a continent in fear of his name spoke volumes.

"It's never good news when you appear," replied Kamui, closing his eyes tensely.

"We don't get the kind of good news you'd pay us for," said Doumeki.

"We have another storm on the way," Kamui guessed, barely making it into a question. With Doumeki and Syaoran here in protective wet weather coats, there was nothing else it could have been.

"Only a few hours away," Doumeki confirmed.

"I see," said Kamui. The strain of all the preparations that would need to be made in that time made its mark even on his face. "As for payment..."

"You can owe it to us," said Doumeki.

"Huh?" said Syaoran, even as Kamui blinked in surprise.

"We'll be back tomorrow," Doumeki clarified. "We need to keep moving. We don't have time to waste."

In the interests of diplomacy, usually they would have left the Diet Building in the direction of their own camp, swinging south towards the Tower only once they were well out of sight. Even if Kamui was fully aware they would be bringing the same information to an enemy camp, there was no need to remind him. Today though, there was no time to be wasted on polite pretence: every minute could make a difference.

* * *

Every body part Watanuki was aware of ached with a dull throb. He supposed that was what he deserved for putting himself through so much physical exertion when he was still one giant bruise, but as long as the others weren't actually kicking him he didn't feel that he had much call to complain. It stood to reason that in a camp this size, even a barely able-bodied psychic would be expected to pull his weight around the place. The unfamiliarity of it all was dizzying—already, he was more than more than half convinced it couldn't possibly last—but as an alternative to being left somewhere out of the way and kicked around intermittently, he decided he might as well make the most of it.

There'd been no great need to rush to get everything covered, as it had turned out they'd had ample time to spare after they'd finished, but there was no sense in dawdling when even these people seemed unsure exactly when the storm would hit. When the dark clouds had started rolling in overhead and finally convinced Watanuki this was all for real, Fye had still been busily double and triple-checking the connections which secured the covers over his precious solar panels. Now, everyone had retreated to the sturdiest of the buildings to wait for the rain to start. There was a tattered but serviceable spare mattress here for him, but stretching out didn't much help, so Watanuki found himself giving in to the old habit and curling up in a convenient corner instead.

A noise made him look up to find Sakura leaning over him to peer at his face, looking concerned.

"You're still hurting, aren't you?" she said softly. "You seemed so much better yesterday evening that we didn't even think about it today, I'm so sorry."

"No—it's not that bad," Watanuki told her, just wishing his appearance could have given that claim a bit more credibility. "Just a little tired and sore. I didn't mind helping out, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Sakura asked, and the sincerity of her concern almost broke him right there, going straight through his guard like nothing else he'd dealt with in a long time. Although he'd change his mind about what he thought of this camp a dozen times in the weeks to follow, in that moment all he could think was that surely any people who could protect and raise a child as innocent as this one could be forgiven all other faults.

"I've had worse, this is really nothing," he told Sakura, trying to imitate her sincerity with moderate success. Attempting to change the subject, he asked, "Any sign of the others yet?"

The way Sakura hung her head almost made Watanuki regret asking. "Nothing. But—there's still plenty of time, right?" she asked, directing the question over her shoulder to the other side of the room, where Fye was lounging as close to Kurogane as he could get away with.

"Oh, certainly," said Fye, without any discernable hesitation. "Why, even if they'd pulled off a record run they'd barely have been back ten minutes ago—we're sure to have plenty of time left to mooch around in here before we'd really need to be inside as it is. As long as they're back before the rain starts they're back in time—and even if they're running a little late, they've got their coats to keep them cosy."

No-one asked how long a raincoat would last against the assault of a full-scale acid storm.

Watanuki decided that if that infuriating Doumeki bastard got himself lost out in the rain barely two days after meeting him, he was going to be very displeased. Doumeki would probably insist on sticking around to haunt him for the rest of his days—and he was bound to turn out to be one of those weird ones who still wouldn't believe in ghosts even after they became one.

Nothing he'd ever done could have made him deserving of that kind of punishment. They'd damn well better be planning to get themselves back in one piece.

Ten minutes later when the first heavy drops of rain began to fall outside, no sign of the two boys had yet been seen.

* * *

Over the course of the next half hour, the sound of the rain grew to an insistent patter. There was silence in the room otherwise, the only other sounds the hiss of the droplets sizzling in the earth outside and the howling wind getting louder with each gust. Even Fye had nothing more to say.

At last, there came a loud thump outside, and the door was thrown open with a bang that echoed so loudly and suddenly around the room that it seemed to rebound Sakura to her feet on impact. There in the doorway stood Doumeki and Syaoran, pulling off coats and goggles to reveal them both flushed with effort and panting, but otherwise undamaged.

"Syaoran!" Sakura cried, barely even waiting for him to finish divesting himself of his acid-soaked outer clothes before throwing her arms around his neck. Syaoran hugged her back with no self-consciousness, assuring her he was alright.

Doumeki greeted the others in more sedate fashion. Considering the short duration and still-uncertain nature of his relationship with these people, Watanuki found himself inexplicably relieved. The atmosphere in this room was contagious.

"Eventful trip?" asked Fye, smile returning.

"Lost a wheel a couple of miles back," Doumeki reported.

"We had to carry the bike the rest of the way," Syaoran added, looking up. "Good thing we took the light one and had the both of us there, or we'd have had to leave it behind." Sakura let out a sob and buried her head in his chest.

"You made the full round?" Kurogane asked.

Doumeki nodded. "We're leaving it to after the storm to go back for compensation, but we were on our way home before anything went wrong."

"There were dark clouds over the Tower already before we got there," Syaoran added. "Fuuma was... a bit funny about getting the warning so late, but he didn't give us any trouble." Later on, someone would explain to Watanuki that sarcasm was something Syaoran had never quite gotten the hang of—least of all Fuuma's bizarre variety—and that statement would make a lot more sense.

"So," said Fye, once all were settled down. "Anyone got any more campfire stories?"


	4. Book 1-3

The rain did not let up until mid way through the following morning. When they finally deemed it safe enough to go out again, the ground outside was still steaming slightly, and the damper patches hissed on contact with their boots. They probably had at least the rest of the day to wait before it would have been advisable to step out there barefoot, but the covers over Fye's equipment had survived the storm almost without damage, and it was high time to get the solar panels active again.

Doumeki drew the task of checking the water tank (closed and sealed at the first word that the coming rain would not be of a quality worth collecting) while the others worked on the panels. Watanuki tagged stiffly along behind him. The effectiveness of their preparations seemed to impress him rather more than they had the previous day.

"Do you do this before every storm?" he asked, watching Doumeki scale the ladder on the side of the tank.

"Can't you guess what would happen if we didn't?" Doumeki replied, already impatient with this line of questioning.

"But it takes hours!" Watanuki protested.

"Are you questioning whether it's worth the effort?" Doumeki wondered whether a life being left indoors had given this idiot a distorted view of what constituted reasonable effort for the reward of a protected camp.

"It's not about the effort," Watanuki replied, sounding snappish, "it's about _having time_."

Doumeki glanced over a shoulder and waited for him to get to the point.

"You people _knew_ the storm was coming! You knew even before the clouds showed up! No-one else makes preparations like this because they _don't know_ when to start!"

"That's true," said Doumeki, going back to what he'd been doing.

"Oh, fine—whatever, you're welcome to just be like that if you prefer it, I'm sure," Watanuki grumbled behind him, "But if it's going to be your big secret you could at least admit you're not telling me and be done with it!"

"Pass me the wrench," said Doumeki, holding out a hand.

Watanuki complied without further comment, but the wrench hit Doumeki's hand with rather more force than necessary.

* * *

Kamui looked no happier to see Doumeki and Syaoran than he had the day before.

"Get everything under cover alright?" Doumeki asked mildly, one eyebrow raising.

"Only by a hair's breadth," Kamui informed him. "Before, you've always been able to give us at least half a day's warning."

"Before, we've always had more than half a day's warning for ourselves," said Doumeki. "But we're just messengers. It's out of our control."

"Then it's hard for me to see why a warning that came as late should be worth so much to us," said Kamui, scarcely mollified.

"A warning is still a warning," said Doumeki. "If you hadn't had it, I'm sure you'd see the difference."

"Oi," said Syaoran, who'd been examining the box of ammunition that had been provided as their fee. "There's barely enough for two weeks use in here. That's not even half...!"

"Then get the rest of what you need from your friends at the Tower," Kamui cut in. He turned to go in a swirl of black cape, with the self-assurance of one of few men in the country who knew no-one would dare try to shoot him in the back.

Kurogane had been dead right that they didn't have enough reputation to waste.

* * *

The next time Watanuki was woken up in the early morning, it was because the see-through boy with the brown hair and the smirk was prodding him with his toe.

When Doumeki woke up a minute later, Watanuki was arguing in loud whispers with someone Doumeki couldn't see. It wasn't that much of a surprise.

He raised an eyebrow when Watanuki finally turned to find him awake. His roommate let out a sigh.

"I got a message about a new supply cache," he said, sounding tired. He twitched a couple of times in an odd kind of way that Doumeki eventually took to mean he was now doing his best to ignore whoever it was he'd been talking to before. If this was all an act, it was an entertaining one.

"Do we have time for breakfast first?" he asked, getting up.

"Sure," said Watanuki, rubbing an eye and moving to do likewise.

When Doumeki got to the doorway, he heard Watanuki hiss something that sounded like, "Why not? Do you have something better to do? You're still going to be dead in ten minutes!"

Doumeki decided they could make breakfast quick.

* * *

"So what are we looking for?" he asked later, as he gave the recently repaired bike a quick check over.

"They never tell me what until we get there," Watanuki reported, sounding petulant, "They don't often give me much idea _where_ either—I just get directions."

"Have you tried asking?"

"You think you just pester dead people with questions like that?"

"You're the expert," said Doumeki.

Watanuki gave another, sharper sigh. "Of course I've tried! I gave up years ago when they wouldn't answer. The last thing I want to do is insult them if they're so set against telling me." He shot a glance at the invisible something, which had apparently followed them out here. Doumeki managed to prevent himself from mimicking the movement with minimal effort.

"This one's always been reliable before though," Watanuki concluded.

"Someone you know?"

"They don't often give me names, but he's taken me a few places before," Watanuki admitted reluctantly. He shot his informant another look, then watched Doumeki preparing the bike for another minute before asking, "Isn't anyone else coming with us for this?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Well, no—I mean, probably not," said Watanuki, fidgeting a little. "But usually, I'm used to..."

"If we find more goods than we can carry, we can always make a second trip, right?"

"I guess," said Watanuki, uncertainly. "Some ghosts won't take me back to the same place twice. But what if things get dangerous? What if we run into someone who doesn't like us? You might have noticed I get recognised a lot, and I don't attract the friendly sort of attention."

For his own part, Doumeki had spent enough time travelling alone or with only Syaoran or Kurogane as backup to be confident he could handle himself. Hostile gangs were always a threat, but not many survived in the area long before running afoul of one of the local superpowers. Still, Watanuki did have a point.

When he went back inside for his gun, he paused to rip a strip of cloth off the edge of a sheet. He propped the gun up against the bike outside, confident he'd checked it over recently enough to trust it. The strip of cloth he handed to Watanuki. "Here. Cover up that eye. We don't want to invite trouble by advertising who you are."

Watanuki accepted it with a nod, and passed his glasses wordlessly over to Doumeki to hold while he knotted it into place as a one-sided blindfold. The right pane of the glasses had a crack running through it, Doumeki noticed, though this wouldn't have bothered Watanuki. He'd only need that pane to balance them.

"Any good with a gun?" he asked.

"I've never used one before," said Watanuki, finishing with the cloth and holding a hand out for his glasses.

Doumeki frowned—that didn't sound right. "But didn't you say..."

"I said I can _clean_ a gun. No-one at any of the other camps ever trusted me enough to let me near ammunition. Besides, I have enough trouble with dead people without adding any with personal grudges to the numbers. Why would I want to shoot anyone?"

"You might if they were trying to shoot you."

Watanuki snorted. "I'm sure that would only encourage them."

* * *

He didn't know how to ride or drive any kind of moving vehicle either, which didn't surprise Doumeki much. There would be no sense in giving someone who'd been brought to your camp by force an easy way out.

For the first hour there was nothing much to see in the unvarying landscape, monotony hardly broken by the occasional larger hill or rock or the odd straggling tree, and not much talking except for when Watanuki made the occasional minor correction to their course. However, Doumeki knew the land around his own camp well enough to know what was out there, and so probably anticipated the sight of the city appearing over the hills before his guide did.

Doumeki had never been much past its outskirts before. Humans and game animals avoided these places as long as any other shelter was available, and many of the old buildings were unstable and dangerous even to approach. The few other surviving fragments of what had once been towns or cities within a day's travel were in similar states. They were eerie places. Although some buildings looked so unaffected by either the disaster or the passage of time that even the paint had barely faded, others were little more than unrecognisable piles of rubble, and in some places there was scarcely any distance between examples of one extreme and the other. Doumeki had seen his share of these places a lifetime ago, back in days when the buildings had towered even further over his small frame. The lesson not to stray from the few known safe paths had been impressed on him firmly enough to quell all childish impulses to bend the rules, and he likely had his life and health today thanks to it. In the years since he'd joined Kurogane's camp, deprived of any experienced guide, the old cities had ceased to hold any attraction. He had heard that the Tower and the Diet Building were once part of a giant city themselves, but mysteriously, little but those two buildings had survived well enough to be recognisable now. Telltale signs of what once had been remained in the form of the odd patch of bitumen or broken down wall scattered across the landscape, or in the small cluster of low buildings in which Kurogane and the others made camp, but the city that had once been was no more than a memory. It was strange to that so many people had once lived in places like these.

"That way," said Watanuki, pointing. "There should be some kind of road."

There was, and for another half an hour the bike's wheels had the rare luxury of travelling over a solid surface before a collapsed building up ahead made the road impassable.

"We'll have to leave it behind here," Watanuki announced, dismounting.

It was safe enough to leave it unguarded; the odds there would be anyone else around to find it while they were gone were comfortably low. Doumeki followed his example, propped the bike up against a wall and took the opportunity to look around a little before they would be moving on.

"Is it always places like this?" he asked.

"Usually. Not always."

"You'd think everything here would have been salvaged years ago."

"You would think so, wouldn't you?" said Watanuki. "Everyone thinks so, so I suppose no-one comes back to check. But the truth is that in all these cities, everyone left so fast or died so suddenly they didn't take much with them."

Made sense, thought Doumeki. Useful thing to know if you had to scam people into believing you were psychic. A little trailing through funny routes after fickle ghost guides and a few lucky hits could easily turn into a miracle in the April Fool's handlers' eyes.

"Are you ready?" Watanuki asked, forcing him to abandon that train of thought for a better time. "Not all the ground is safe around here. There's going to be some climbing, and we're going to have to keep to the directions we get very carefully."

Without prompting, he began leading the way.

Watanuki's unseen guide led them into a maze of ruined buildings. There was indeed some climbing required, and some edging carefully along uncomfortably narrow ledges and over walkways which had already collapsed in multiple places. More than once Doumeki slipped far enough from the path to feel patches disintegrate under his feet and send new streams of gravel spilling away down the slope. Any doubt Watanuki had been serious about the danger was soon dispelled.

Several times Doumeki would have sworn they'd gone around in a circle—or at least an exaggerated spiral, but it didn't seem quite worth it to complain. Doumeki didn't much like the thought of what a trip through this kind of territory could be like with one of the less-than-friendly guides Watanuki had alluded to, and after his first couple of slips, he made a careful point of placing his feet only where Watanuki had before him.

It would have been a lot more nerve-wracking had Doumeki not had good reason to believe Watanuki had come back alive from enough errands like this one plenty of times before. The April Fool had taken on a new air since they arrived—he seemed strangely at home in these surroundings, particularly strange given that he couldn't have been to this city before. Even the sideways glances at whatever ghostly companion he'd been following became less uncertain and—before long—barely discernable from Doumeki's angle behind him.

The one exception to Watanuki's newfound dignity was a big one, and struck as they were moving into an enclosed tunnel formed where a wall had fallen sideways against a sturdier building beside it, leaving a narrow space between them. Inside, there was little light, and the sound of their footsteps echoed loudly off the walls.

It was slightly unnerving, up to the point where, out of the blue, Watanuki suddenly yelled out, "We are not! How much noise are we supposed to make in here? It's the _echo_ , anything would sound like stomping!"

Doumeki was just about to point out that outburst had been uncalled for because he hadn't said anything, when he realised he wasn't the one being addressed.

"So what are we supposed to do, tiptoe?" Watanuki continued, "It isn't like there's anyone around to hear." There was a pause, then in a slightly higher voice, he said, "You're only saying that to scare me! Just how old do you think I am?"

Here Watanuki must have abruptly remembered Doumeki's existence, because he whipped around to face his visible companion. Seeing Doumeki had responded to the exchange with no more than a look of continued mild disinterest, he settled for giving Doumeki a quick glare and going back on his way again, now only stomping louder, if anything.

Even if they didn't turn up anything useful, it seemed there was some good entertainment value to be had from these trips.

The tunnel led out onto what seemed like a low, flattened rooftop. Taller buildings soared up from the unseen ground below on either side. Ahead, a pale white shape stood out in sharp contrast to the dull grey of their surroundings. It was another rooftop, a little lower down and half buried where larger buildings had begun to collapse on either side. The white roof itself, however, had miraculously survived. It was obvious all of a sudden that this was where they'd been going all along.

Watanuki pointed. "There's a way down on the other side. There should be some kind of entrance from there."

Doumeki squinted to where Watanuki was pointing, he thought he could just about make out the place he was talking about. "That our destination?"

"Seems like it," said Watanuki evasively. Apparently his ghost was being vague again,

Rubble around the base had built up so high that the entrance brought them in through a broken second story window. Doumeki's feet touched down on a floor covered with a couple of decades of dust. Once his eyes had had a moment to adjust to the dimmer light, Doumeki saw that they'd arrived in a small, square room. There was a bed on one wall—a real one with a proper base and springs, but the room as a whole had an artificial quality to it somehow. Doumeki doubted anyone had ever lived here long.

"Here?" he inquired.

Watanuki shook his head. "There's nothing in this room that would be useful. We have to go further down."

The corridor was far darker than the room had been. Doorways lead to other rooms on both sides, but there were no windows to let light in from less than the width of a room away. The end of the corridor brought them to a corner, then another door, and through it, down a flight of stairs. Whatever they were looking for was on the bottom floor.

The ground floor was better lit than Doumeki had expected. Open spaces were larger on this level, and most of the large windows lining the outer wall were clear of the debris that had covered the other side of the building. One final journey down a darkened corridor brought them to where light spilled out of an open doorway. The room beyond—the first of a series of smaller rooms—was lit from another window, one of those rare few in which even the glass had survived intact. Inside, row after row of shelves held an assortment of boxes and jars. They must have found their way to a store room.

"This is it," said Watanuki, stopping and turning back to face his follower.

Doumeki picked a jar off a nearby shelf and inspected it. Most of the words on the faded label were gibberish to him, but a couple of familiar ones rang some illuminating bells. "These are medical supplies."

"That's what this whole building was for," said Watanuki, then sounding less certain, added, "...something medical, anyway."

Definitely a find, assuming any of these old drugs were still usable after all this time, or anyone remembered what they were for. But even if less than a quarter of all this was salvageable, it was still a treasure trove. With their usual diet of old meat, even a handful of vitamin pills were worth a good deal.

But just stuffing things into a bag at random couldn't be much of a strategy. "There aren't many things here I recognise," Doumeki admitted.

"I can point out what's usable," said Watanuki.

Doumeki nodded, and shrugged the pack off his shoulders. "Your ghost was some kind of doctor?" he asked conversationally.

"No," Watanuki replied distantly, "he just had some sort of part-time job here once. Or nearby or something like that." He shook himself slightly. "I don't ask them how they know this stuff—they just _do_. Start with these ones here," he added, pointing to a shelf.

After moving through the shelves and piling a few dozen containers carefully into the pack at Watanuki's direction, Doumeki had to ask, "Will we be able to get back here a second time?" With the pack almost full they'd barely dented the supplies they'd found.

Watanuki paused a moment, apparently listening to his ghost again, then sighed and said, "He'll be smug and annoying about it, but he'll lead us back here again. Just... we can't always do this, alright? Some of them get all tetchy and they take it out on me."

"Noted," said Doumeki, not really listening. Satisfied, he buckled the pack back up for the long trip home.

The hour it took on the bike to get back to the camp gave Doumeki ample time to reflect on the outcome of the day. Watanuki's talents were now beyond question. It would take masterful ability to fabricate such a scheme deliberately—more than Doumeki could believe worth the effort to anyone. However, deceit didn't have to be conscious to be perfectly natural. A madman with a few unnaturally developed instincts for finding stable ground could pull of most of what he'd seen Watanuki do today without ever realising how he was doing it. Just because Watanuki honestly believed he was seeing ghosts didn't mean they had to be real. And even if the ghosts were real, it didn't necessarily mean he wasn't crazy.

After all, everyone was a little crazy these days.

* * *

"He's for real," was how he summarised it to Kurogane when they got back.

"Then it's time we taught him how to avoid tripping the security fence," said Kurogane, which was as close to throwing a welcoming party for the newcomer as the camp was ever likely to get.

The haul from their trip was delivered to Fye and Sakura, who fell on the task of sorting through it all eagerly. Watanuki made an attempt to help, but even he was a bit unclear about some of the jars he'd instructed Doumeki to take, now that the serious question of what they were for had come up. Between them, enough of the containers were identified by the end of the day (painkillers, antibiotics, diet supplements, amongst many other kinds) for the trip to be declared a great success.

It was just as great a relief to Watanuki to have that first trip over with, although the outcome was no surprise to him. Even if they did have to go back again the very next day. Kurogane and Fye came too on the other bike, the latter making assorted comments about double dates and Kuro finally taking him out somewhere interesting, which Watanuki did his level best not to hear. Doumeki appeared to be doing likewise.

"At least your new keeper's better looking than any of the last lot," said the ghost, sounding bored.

"Shut up," Watanuki hissed, and tried not to notice that Doumeki now seemed to be ignoring him the same way he was ignoring the other two.

* * *

When they got back from the second trip at last, Doumeki and Fye went to lug their new haul over to that lab building they still wouldn't let him go near. Apparently that wasn't the only reason he'd been excluded from the final stage of the transport process, because Kurogane pulled him aside almost as soon as they were back and said he needed a word.

Watanuki had not been left alone for long with anyone but Doumeki since he'd joined their camp, and Kurogane's long-limbed bulk and glare were no less imposing in private. He swallowed nervously and hoped he wasn't being too obvious. He just couldn't read anything from any of these people. Thank god Kurogane didn't have any reason to be angry with him.

"'A couple of times a month', you said," Kurogane began, sitting himself down on the edge of a table.

"On average, Watanuki repeated automatically, wondering whether he should find somewhere to sit down himself or whether he'd been left standing deliberately. "But I meant it when I said I never know..."

"You never know when and you never know what for," Kurogane cut in, demonstrating his perfectly functional memory. "We can't rely on that," he said seriously, "but we can use it. You want to stay, you pull your weight around the camp like everyone else does. When you can find us supplies, we'll take advantage of it, but you won't be thrown out for failing as long as you work for your keep."

Part of Watanuki was horribly insulted. It might have had a history of causing him as much strife as good, but he'd never had his supernatural gifts so belittled before. It was also so painfully rational that it was just about impossible to object to.

"Doumeki already asked me what skills I had you could make use of. There isn't much," he admitted. "I've never been expected—or really allowed—to do much before."

"You can learn," said Kurogane, unperturbed. "Your past doesn't matter to any of us here; it's what you do from here on. It's the same rule for everyone."

"That's the kind of rule you make when you have more to hide from your own past than everyone else does, isn't it?" Watanuki had said before he could stop himself, then mentally kicked himself hard for it. You just didn't _say_ things like that to people like this. What was it about a week or two without getting beaten that had made him this stupid?

But Kurogane practically brushed his comment aside. "If that were true, would you want to know?"

"No," Watanuki admitted. "But... that isn't always how you think, is it? I know you're all still thinking about—about what happened to that gang you found me with."

"Will it happen again?" Kurogane had him fixed with a look there could be no escaping from.

 _Not as long as you don't beat me up and threaten to get my blood everywhere_ , was what Watanuki wanted to say, but could he really be sure that was the only possible trigger? "I don't really know. Nothing like that has ever happened on that kind of scale before, but...."

"Then that might be more than part of the past," said Kurogane. "If it comes up in future, we'll deal with it when we get there."

With that, the conversation seemed to be over.

Barely a couple of weeks at this camp, and Watanuki felt like his head had never stopped spinning since he arrived. There was something intrinsically real and solid about these people in a way that made everything he'd ever experienced seem like part of a dream in comparison, but that only made it all the harder to believe any of it could _stay_ real.

"Oi," said Kurogane, just as he was heading back to the building he and Doumeki shared. As soon as Watanuki looked back, Kurogane looked away again. "If you ever get a message from anyone called Souma, I don't want to know." That said, he pulled the door shut and left Watanuki gaping where he stood.

Watanuki decided then that he wasn't going to ask anything more about those gravestones he'd seen in the least-used corner of the camp. Whoever was there had left him alone so far, and now he certainly didn't want to give them any excuse to do otherwise.


	5. Book 1-4

It was about a week later, to Fye's unmitigated delight, that Watanuki lead them on another trip to an old junkyard which supplied a number of parts he needed to repair a much-lamented solar panel which had been broken since the previous year. Although it was only half a day's travel away from them, no-one in the camp had had the slightest idea the place was there. Better yet, it was accessible enough that they'd be able to go back there if they wanted to in the future, and covered enough that what acid rain hadn't destroyed already could be counted on to survive a good while longer. Fye practically had to be dragged away.

A third discovery of a half-buried tanker of surprisingly well-preserved fuel would have gone down better had it not required half a fuel tank's journey to get there and back, or had they owned more vehicles which hadn't been converted to run on Fye's batteries. Still, the larger vehicles they'd recovered from Watanuki's previous gang could make use of it, should they ever be needed, and the Tower and the Diet Building would pay well for information about it if they needed that bargaining chip in the future. It was far from a wasted trip.

The one after took them a day and a half of travel, camping out in the wild on the night in between. In reward, they uncovered a crate full of small paper filters—items Doumeki identified as accessories to an old chemical scanning device Fye had had to abandon a few years previously when their original filter supply ran out. The filters had to be soaked in whatever mystery substance needed identifying, and could only be used once apiece before they disintegrated. It was a long trip for only what amounted to a disposable luxury item, but a few months worth of knowing for sure just how much poison was in the meat they brought home was novelty enough that no-one had any complaints.

Watanuki learned to start a fire, skin a carcass, change a battery, and hold up Fye's toolbox long enough to give Sakura a break. He was neither a fast learner nor a good pupil, and as his initial nervousness wore off he would whinge and moan loudly if given a task he didn't feel he deserved or didn't understand exactly how to do. However, even at his bitchiest, once he'd taken on a job, he would stick through it until it was done, however unsatisfied he might be with the result. One way or another he made himself useful enough to leave his worth to them in no doubt. Somehow, even Watanuki's ghosts worked their way into camp life.

Since a lot of the camp work suitable for someone not qualified to use a gun revolved around Fye's endless quest to keep all his solar panels up and running, Watanuki saw a lot of him—and them—as he settled in. This also gave him ample opportunity to discover just how intricate and ingenious the whole system was—much to Fye's delight, who was not remotely modest about any of his achievements. Chances to show off to anyone new were far too rare to be wasted.

"I really have never seen anything on this scale before," Watanuki admitted one time, while Fye preened. "A couple of camps I've been with before had one or two, but they broke down all the time and no-one ever knew quite how to fix them. To keep this many working all the time is amazing."

"Well, I did grow up in a Complex not too far from here," Fye admitted casually. "They still preserve all kinds of technical knowledge there, you know. My measly little bank of panels is nothing compared to the nest up on their roof."

It really said a lot about this camp, Watanuki thought to himself as he tried to regain his mental equilibrium, that even after so long here they could still spring things like this on him. "You... _really?_ "

"Oh yes."

"But then... what are you doing out _here?_ " Watanuki blurted out, and had to kick himself again. It was almost like he'd left all his tact and common sense back at that last camp.

"Keeping our solar panels up and running with most of my time," said Fye, not the least bothered by either the question or the task of crafting a suitably evasive answer.

There was an uncomfortable silence—uncomfortable for Watanuki, anyway, as Fye went on with his work without the slightest sign any faux pas had been made.

"Do you ever miss it?" Watanuki asked quietly. There had always been something horribly sinister about the Complexes to him—something not even the Tower or any other hostile gang could replicate, and yet, stories about them were such that it seemed implausible that anyone would ever voluntarily leave.

"The Complex?" said Fye. "No, no, can't say I do. Life there has its perks, but life is so much more relaxed out here. More exciting too."

Watanuki didn't want to know what Fye's idea of excitement entailed.

"And out here, I've got our Kurogane—and all the kids as well," Fye added fondly. "No competition at all."

"Ah," said Watanuki, not sure what else to say.

The April Fool was not without his less endearing oddities, however—hovering being one of them. Particularly when, like on one occasion after one of their missions , he was specifically supposed to be somewhere else.

Replacing a damaged wheel on the bike wasn't a job that required Doumeki to look back over his shoulder much, but when Watanuki was still skulking around behind him on the third glance back, it became difficult to ignore.

"Don't you have something to skin before dinner?" he asked, turning around properly.

Watanuki refused to look guilty. "Would you believe me if I told you there's a man with no legs and eight eyes who keeps staring at me every time I go near it?"

"No," said Doumeki.

"Why not?" Watanuki complained. "Why would I make up something like that?"

"To get out of work."

"And what good would that do? I'll still have to do it later—but by then, maybe he'll have gone away!"

"If you leave it long enough, Sakura might take pity on you and do it for you."

"I wouldn't take advantage of her like that!"

"Then do it yourself. Bring it over here to do if it makes a difference."

"And what if he follows me over?"

"Stare back at him," Doumeki suggested.

Watanuki reluctantly complied. No further mention of the legless man was made.

Although Doumeki didn't mention the incident specifically, the subject of Watanuki's ghosts came up again later that evening while he was talking with two of the others. Kurogane shared his concerns, though he didn't have much to add. Watanuki's ghosts taking a role in camp life other than leading them to supplies made them all a little uncomfortable.

"He believes they're real," said Doumeki. "He's not making that part up."

"But—they must be, right?" said Syaoran. "How else could he find all those things?"

"Kamui and Fuuma think we must have a contact at the Complexes because they don't know about Chi," Kurogane pointed out.

"But _we_ know about Chi," Syaoran protested, not seeing the parallel. "The only reason they make the wrong guess is because we don't tell them. Kimihiro couldn't be hiding anything like that."

In many respects, Syaoran had less education than any of the rest of them—the borderline-amnesic state he'd been found in made sure of that. The skills he had he took obsessive pride in, but anyone who could do anything better than him, something he couldn't do at all, he held in a position of unquestioning respect—even reverence, in extreme cases. Watanuki made the former at category easily.

Technically, Syaoran should have encountered enough of the dangerous madmen found wandering the wilderness on occasion to know just how many strange and terrible things were possible for such people—men or women who talked gibberish and fought with far too much strength for their emancipated frames, who must have survived on nothing but poisoned food and their own madness for years to reach that state. But there were some among them who were not so obviously crazy.

"There's the possibility even Watanuki doesn't know the real way he does some things," Doumeki explained. "The ghosts are only real to him, so there's no way for us to verify his story."

"But..." said Syaoran, apparently wrestling with something important. "Kimihiro isn't the only one who sees ghosts."

Doumeki exchanged a glance with Kurogane. "You haven't said anything before."

Syaoran shook his head. "It isn't me. But Sakura says she's seen things like ghosts many times. You remember last year, when she got lost in the Deadlands after that surprise attack?"

Doumeki nodded. He remembered only too well—those memories included an uncomfortable feeling of relief when Syaoran was knocked unconscious in the fight and stayed that way until after Sakura had been safely returned.

"She told me when she found her way back it was because a line of figures who never spoke and who she could barely see pointed the way for her," said Syaoran. "She was so tired by then that I wondered if she could have dreamt it all."

"But if she did, how did she find her way?" said Kurogane, finishing his thought for him.

Syaoran looked at them defiantly.

Doumeki didn't like this turn of events at all. The last thing they needed was Sakura going crazy—she'd drag Syaoran straight down with her, and he'd always been halfway crazed as it was. Still, Doumeki figured, the boy wasn't the one following a near stranger across the countryside on what amounted to little more they could quantify than a series of mad hunches. He didn't really have much room to complain.

* * *

Watanuki slumped down by the far side of the storage building and let out a sigh of relief. Free moments like this were to be savoured. He hadn't known the meaning of hard work before he got there, and in his crazier moments he sometimes missed the days when his ability to sit somewhere out of the way and not make much noise had been his _second_ most-prized talent.

The last thing he wanted was to see the mad kid come around a corner, spot him sitting there and make straight for him.

"Kimihiro, can I talk to you about something?" Syaoran asked seriously. The 'something' was made to sound important enough that he'd need a very good excuse to avoid this conversation.

"I suppose so," Watanuki said uncertainly.

Syaoran nodded and turned to head towards the edge of the camp. Apparently Watanuki was expected to follow.

What was this about anyway? Even in a camp where just about everyone seemed to have their own personal kind of crazy, this boy creeped him out. He was a killer—anyone who'd met him could've told you that much—but Watanuki had met plenty of killers in his time and none of the others had an aura like Syaoran's. If 'aura' was even the right word for what looked like a mess of ghost bodies, so entangled he could never count them nor even tell one from the next. Watanuki had no idea what to make of it, beyond being severely weirded out. No-one could be haunted by that much spiritual power for any reason that was nice.

With such thoughts running through his head, it threw him completely when Syaoran stopped just inside the security boundary, turned and began their conversation with, "If your eyes can see ghosts, do you see anything on me?"

Watanuki could only gape at him in shock.

"She doesn't talk about it much," Syaoran went on, as if Watanuki's eyes weren't ready to bug out of his head, "but Sakura is something like you. She sees things the rest of us can't—ghosts and spirits, and she gets feelings from some places. They just don't help her find things like they help you, so she doesn't act like it's important most of the time."

While Watanuki was still trying to digest those first couple of bombshells, he kept talking. "There's been a hole in my memory since before we ever joined Kurogane's camp. Before that, I only remember things in bits and pieces. I don't know where we came from, but it was somewhere bad. Something must have happened when we left—or I must have done something—or why wouldn't I be able to remember?

"Sakura can't tell me much either. Whatever happened there, it scared her. I don't want to make her remember any more than she has to," If Watanuki had ever had any doubt that Sakura meant more than everything else in the world to this boy, it would have collapsed under the sound of his voice and the look on his face then. "But just sometimes, she looks at me like she's seeing something that scares her. Can you tell me what she's seeing?"

The last part was delivered looking Watanuki straight in the eye.

"There are spirits," Watanuki had blurted out before he'd even thought about it. "They're faint, but they're all over you."

Syaoran took this remarkably well. "What do you mean by spirits? Are they people's ghosts?"

"Probably," said Watanuki. "They're all blurred together; I can't make them out well."

"Are they people I've killed?"

"They might be." Even though he'd been thinking just as much minutes before, suddenly Watanuki needed there to be another explanation, however much less likely it might be. "Or they might be people from a grave you visited. They might not be people at all."

"Is there anything that would make them go away?"

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before. I'm sorry," Watanuki finished miserably.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," said Syaoran, matter-of-factly. "I just wanted to know. Thank you."

Of course, it was only afterwards that it occurred to Watanuki that maybe he shouldn't have told Syaoran at all. If Sakura hadn't told him herself, then surely it wasn't someone else's place to get involved. What he'd described to Syaoran would be a terrifying thing to find out about yourself—not that Syaoran had seemed that bothered. What did it take to faze that boy?

Then, in return, he'd been given one of Sakura's own secrets—one it seemed perhaps no-one else in the camp was privy to. Would she mind? He'd never even heard of anyone else seeing ghosts the way he did—but how did you bring something like that up in conversation, when you weren't sure if you were supposed to know at all? Would it be better to let her know he knew the secret, or keep the secret that Syaoran had shared it? Whose confidence would he be betraying worst?

The one upside to living in gangs full of uniformly horrible people was that you didn't _have_ these sorts of problems, Watanuki reflected, then felt awfully ungrateful about thatthought too.

For better or worse, it was Sakura herself who approached him the following day—and not without warning, as she'd been looking at him like she had something to say all morning, to Watanuki's mixed anticipation and dread. When Fye vanished off into the lab building for some part or other he needed, she didn't wait long before making the most of the opportunity.

"Syaoran told you, didn't he? What I can see?" she asked softly, even as she was fishing busily through the toolbox with her grease-stained hands.

Several thoughts collided in Watanuki's head regarding the just how _much_ of what was said Syaoran was likely to have relayed. It seemed best to tread carefully. "The ghosts?" he said, instinctively letting his voice rise no louder than hers.

Sakura nodded. "On cloudy days, there's a grey woman who watches the sunrise from the edge of the camp. You've seen her too, right?"

Watanuki could only stare, eyes wide.

"I'm not like you," Sakura said sadly, finding the tool she needed by touch and bringing her hands back to her chest. "I can only barely see them. Often, they're only shapes, and I can't make any sense of what they try to say to me. I see their mouths move, and they point and try to tell me things, but their voices don't come. They can't show me where to find things like they can show you. I can't help them like you can."

"But—you really see them!" Watanuki blurted. "No-one else I've ever met could do that! I thought I must be the only one in the world..."

But Sakura was shaking her head. "All I can do is see how much they're hurting. What you can do—it's all real, isn't it? It's so much more important."

"I don't know that I really help them," replied Watanuki. "When they talk to me—take me places, it's them trying to help us, mostly. I can't do much in return. Most of them don't seem to want anything."

"But you can still listen, can't you? Even just to have someone who can listen, I'm sure that must mean so much to them."

Watanuki recalled many nights spent in childhood—even into his older years—huddled under whatever covers he had, blocking his ears against hundreds of voices crying and wailing, sharing horrors he couldn't bear to hear. He'd never felt guilty about it before. It hadn't happened nearly so much since he'd joined this camp, thank whatever gods might be involved. He didn't want to imagine how Doumeki would react to a display like that.

"I don't know whether it's enough to help," Watanuki told her. "There's just so many of them."

They both lapsed into silence. When Watanuki had pictured meeting someone else with his ability in his younger years—someone who _understood_ —he'd never imagined pictured anything like this.

"You've seen what's around Syaoran too," said Sakura.

Even if Syaoran hadn't shared that part of the conversation, it was hardly as though anyone with the sight they shared himself could've missed it. "Yeah."

"They've been there ever since that day we escaped. He didn't mean to hurt anyone, he was just trying to protect me. He's always protected me, through everything we've been through. That part—and what he did, he doesn't remember anymore. But I can't forget. I can't ever forget anything," Sakura twisted her hands and looked away. "I thought, just this one time, I should be able to protect him from something. That's why I never told him."

She shook herself slightly. "I'm sorry. I know I can't be making much sense to you."

"No, it's alright, I think I understand." Even if Watanuki had no idea what she was referring to, there was something—maybe the emotion in her voice—that made him feel like he'd understood far more than he should have. "It's like you said about the ghosts—to have even one person to listen, even if they can't understand everything, it makes a difference. For me too. I've never spoken to anyone else who saw them before."

Sakura rubbed her eyes, and looked up at him again. "Then we can all take care of each other too, right?"

Watanuki only wished he believed it.

* * *

Doumeki got back to their shared building that evening to find that, for once, Watanuki hadn't gone to bed ahead of him. He wasn't even in the room. With a sense of nagging familiarity, Doumeki went for a lap of the camp perimeter. He eventually found Watanuki seated on the remains of the old low wall around the Western side—not exactly the same place he'd turned up last time he hadn't been able to sleep, but close enough.

Watanuki gave him no more than a cursory backward glance as he approached, and remained silent until Doumeki came to a stop behind the wall, just off to his side.

"Couldn't sleep again?"

"Did you know Sakura could see ghosts?" said Watanuki. His voice had that accusatory quality which Doumeki hadn't heard for a while.

"So I hear."

"Well? Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Not really," said Doumeki. As long as they didn't lead her to any buried treasure, it didn't make much difference one way or the other.

"I should've known," said Watanuki with a weak laugh.

After a minute has passed without Doumeki finding anything to say in reply, Watanuki came out with, "Look, I'm going to start talking, alright? About a whole lot of things I'm sure you've got no interest in, so you don't have to say anything. You don't even have to pay much attention, but I need someone to listen or it's all going to stay bottled up in here all night. And then probably neither of us would get any sleep."

Doumeki gave a slight nod in confirmation.

"This world—it's all _wrong_ ," Watanuki began. "That wouldn't be news to anyone, but other people don't realise _how_ wrong. I don't just see ghosts now and then, I see them everywhere. There's thousands of them—too many to count—always right there on the edge of what I can see. There's so many I don't know how everyone else doesn't see them too.

"What happened Before—so many people dying at once like that—it's not supposed to work like that. It's like things don't know how to live or die properly anymore because everything got thrown out of balance. And the ghosts I see are all so _miserable_. When they're at their worst they all scream and wail and beg for things no-one can give them. They want us to survive so _badly_ , sometimes even more than _we_ want to, but most of them don't have any idea how to help. If they get too close, all they can do is drag us down with them."

He took a breath there, and continued on in a quieter tone. "Sakura said she can't hear them. She thought it was wonderful that I could talk to them because that way I could help, but what can _I_ do? There's _billions_ of them and there's only one of me, and the things they want to tell me I can't stand to hear. They keep on talking even when I'm trying so hard not to listen. What good is that?"

"Isn't that what I'm doing?" said Doumeki. Watanuki looked at him, uncomprehending.

"Being here to hear you," Doumeki explained. "Even if I'm not listening very hard." Though he couldn't easily not listen. Even if he didn't understand half of what he was on about, Watanuki's voice was hypnotic.

"I guess..." said Watanuki, sounding uncertain.

"Then that's enough, isn't it?" said Doumeki. "Or you wouldn't have asked me to listen." It was hard to tell whether Watanuki was fully convinced, but he settled down a little, looking thoughtful.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't talk about this much."

"No-one else to pretend to listen to you?"

"Look," said Watanuki irritably, "It's not like you're the only people I've ever met who could ever bothered to be civil to me. I have known people I actually _liked_ before. And even the worst gangs at least believed me."

"But we're the only ones who are still alive?" Doumeki hazarded.

Watanuki glared at him. "Since when does death stop people bothering me? The one difference is that you're the ones who are _here_."

"Would you rather be somewhere else?"

Watanuki sighed. "Nowhere I can think of. Oh, why can't you ever just let me win an argument for a change?"

"Are we arguing?"

" _We might as well be._ "

"Don't see why," said Doumeki. "Ready to come back inside?"

Apparently, Watanuki was.


	6. Book 1-5

At the end of the week, with autumn drawing to a close, the weather turned bad again—unseasonably so for that time of year. The new forecast promised two acid storms within the space of a few days, but at least this time the first was still a couple of days away when they heard of it, so the drama of informing the local landlords was not repeated.

Apart from a little pointed grouching, Watanuki seemed to have given up on having it explained to him how they knew what was coming. Really, after he'd been at the camp so long, their original reasons for not telling him were wearing a little thin, but it could wait a shade longer. The midst of their preparations for the first storm was not the ideal time to bring up that subject, and all the additional questions attached.

Not that there was much stress involved in preparations they'd had down to an art long ago, or when they had ample time to make them. The evening and night spent huddled indoors were nothing more than routine either. Trouble didn't begin until the next morning, when they went to remove the covers from the solar panels again to make the most of the late autumn sunshine over the next couple of days. The covers had been showing their age for years, there were small tears around the edges of several of them, but they'd shown no inclination to advance at all in ages. Not until Watanuki and Sakura were removing one from a panel that day, and one innocent tug too many sent the whole sheet tearing end to end in one fluid, unstoppable motion, dividing the whole piece exactly in half.

"And I only just got that last panel working again too," said Fye, staring at the ruined sheet forlornly.

"How bad is it going to be?" Kurogane asked him.

"I can remove most of the sensitive components before the storm hits," said Fye, "and it probably wouldn't hurt to tack what we've got left of the cover over the top of it, but no matter what, the water's still going to get in and corrode some little hard-to-find connection somewhere. If I've been very good this year, maybe it'll be repairable without needing too many new parts we don't have, but tracking down just what needs to be replaced is bound to take me at least a solid week. You know," he added, playing idly with the dust with his fingers, "assuming none of the other panels give me _any_ other trouble in the meantime." He gave a dejected sigh.

"The Tower and the Diet Building are bound to have sheets of their own to spare..." said Doumeki thoughtfully.

"But you just try and convince them to trade us even one piece at twice its value two days from an acid storm," said Fye, finishing the thought for him.

"We don't have any other options, do we?" said Syaoran.

"Short of a miracle," said Fye, with maybe the slightest sideways glance at Watanuki, "nothing at all!"

"Then you'd better get started on that panel," Kurogane instructed, his frown even deeper than usual.

Watanuki spent the rest of the day in a mood even more miserable than the gloom that had settled on the rest of the camp.

"It wasn't your fault," Doumeki said to him at last. "Or Sakura's," he added.

"I know that!" Watanuki protested. "Just...why did it have to rip _now_ of all times? How often do we get two storms this close together?"

"Better now than an hour before the next storm, or in the middle of one," said Doumeki. "At least this way we'll have prepared as best we can without it. We've managed on one less solar panel in the past."

"Thank you. All very rational and sensible and everything, but none of that makes this one bit less frustrating."

"It's frustrating for everyone," said Doumeki. "We'll deal with it."

After Watanuki had sat there glowering for a few minutes, Doumeki added. "No-one expects you to be able to do anything to fix this."

"And wouldn't you believe it," said Watanuki, not meeting his eyes, "that only makes it all the worse."

Doumeki more or less put the conversation out of his mind for the rest of the day, but late in the evening, he stepped out of the storeroom to find Watanuki standing nearby with the angry, pointed look on his face that meant he had something on his mind as was waiting for permission to speak. Doumeki raised an eyebrow.

"Suppose I could do something," said Watanuki.

"Something like?"

"Like find us a new cover sheet for the panel."

Alarm bells went off in Doumeki's head immediately. "You've always made it very clear you don't know in advance what you're going to find."

"Well," said Watanuki uneasily, "suppose I lied about that."

"That sounds like a very big thing to lie about," said Doumeki, dangerously.

"Don't call it a lie then," Watanuki's unease was growing, "call it—an oversimplification! You remember how I told you that not all the ghosts who lead me places are reliable?"

"Yeah?" The run of luck they'd had since the April Fool had joined their camp had, in fact, been better than anyone could have expected.

"Well, there's more to it than that," said Watanuki, taking a deep breath. "Some of them I know well enough to be sure they're reliable—like the one that lead us to those medical supplies. Some anyone could tell only want to make trouble—I don't deal with those ones. Most of the time I don't know for sure one way or the other, but if I think they probably aren't trustworthy, usually I ignore them.

"Sometimes there are just a few that act like they're trying to tempt me by telling me exactly what they're going to lead me too, but those ones are always the kind I'm less sure about. _Sometimes_ they make good on what they promise, but other times they just lead me to a dead end and laugh at me."

"Or worse," Doumeki guessed.

"Or worse," Watanuki agreed.

"So this is one of those kinds," said Doumeki, folding his arms.

Watanuki nodded, still looking nervous. "It's a risk—and you need to know it's a risk—but it might pay off. And we risk losing a panel anyway if we don't _try_. What do you think?"

Doumeki considered. The whole situation made him uncomfortable, but just how big a risk this was he was in no place to judge. "You're the expert. Do you think it's worth it?"

"I'm going to feel like I've wasted an opportunity if we don't," said Watanuki, looking at the ground.

"Can we leave it until first thing tomorrow morning?" Doumeki asked.

Watanuki nodded, though he didn't look greatly relieved to have the matter settled.

* * *

The following morning dawned warm and bright. The sky revealed not the slightest hint that another storm was barely more than twenty four hours away. Although not normally prone to superstition, it didn't do anything to put Doumeki at ease.

The route Watanuki directed them on took them back to the ruined city again, but rather than take the same entrance as on their last visit, they turned to skirt just around the edge of it for a good distance. Presently, the layout of the nearest buildings changed to give way to the edge of an old warehouse district. The ground further in was covered in a deepening carpet of rubble which had built up gradually as parts of the buildings either side had collapsed, so they left the bike behind and went in on foot. Watanuki had little of his usual confidence on this mission, Doumeki noticed straight away. He glanced around far more than usual, swallowing dryly on a couple of occasions, and more than once he stumbled even where the ground had seemed relatively smooth. The nervousness made sense if the spirit guiding them was—by his own admission—perhaps not to be trusted, but it put Doumeki all the more on edge as well.

Grey, bricklike buildings loomed up on either side of them in regularly spaced rows, all the more imposing for the monotony of their design. Watanuki lead them along one of the inner boundaries of the district for a short distance, to one of the smaller warehouses. It had probably been a dull, decrepit-looking building even back in the days when it was still in use, but time since had seen part of the roof and one of the walls cave in. They made their way inside through the gap with care.

Rubble and fallen roof-sheets covered most of the interior. There was none of the unnatural preservation that marked most of the places the Watanuki had taken him before. Perhaps that made a sort of sense, when the material they were searching for was characterised by its durability. Doumeki was just about to draw some attention to this when a flash of red on one of Watanuki's arms caught his eye.

"What's that?" he said. When Watanuki turned to look at him questioningly, Doumeki nodded downwards. Watanuki followed his gaze, and stared at the cuts on his arm with a look of surprise that his companion doubted he was faking.

"I must've scraped it on something," Watanuki said, starting to turn away again, but Doumeki caught him by the wrist and forced him around so that they were facing one another properly. There were cuts on both his arms—two sets of three horizontal lines that had gone cleanly through the fabric of his sleeves and into the flesh below, evenly spaced and far too far apart for claw marks.

"Those look too regular to be accidental," he observed.

"Well, _I_ don't know how they happened, do I?" Watanuki protested. "I didn't even notice they were there until you pointed them out. Can't we just find what we're looking for and get out of here?"

Doumeki took another hard look at the cuts. They didn't look very deep, and there was no sign they'd been bleeding much (which was odd enough in itself). There wasn't going to be much point in pursing the matter any further, not when Watanuki was so obviously set against discussing it, but the suggestion they get out of there quickly sounded suddenly even more appealing than before.

They found what they were looking for in a sheltered back corner. Sheets of the old-world fabric were folded and stacked in a pile, a heavy weight on the top to keep them from blowing away. The one on the very top showed some signs of wear, but several below it looked to be in usable condition and held out comfortably as Doumeki gave the sides a few experimental tugs to test their strength. There'd be room in the pack for a couple of sheets at least, if they folded them down far enough.

Technically, however, they only needed the one. And some instinct in Doumeki—one he couldn't put a name to, though it had to have something to do with those marks on Watanuki's arms—was making him wary of taking any more from this place than they needed.

Doumeki picked one of the better looking sheets, folded it into a bundle and stuffed it into his pack. "We're done," he told Watanuki. "Let's go."

They mood lightened somewhat on their way back out. It was a relief just to have the mission proven successful and the worst over with. Doumeki thought he could just make out the first suggestion of storm clouds on the horizon through a gap between the buildings when they got back outside again—still far off yet, but another reminder it was high time they were on their way home.

Those cuts on Watanuki's arms were still bothering him, visible in distracting snatches as he followed the other boy out. The red stood out in stark contrast to the other dull colours of the land around them; something about it made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. So narrow had his focus become that even when Watanuki froze suddenly and then leapt back towards him, it took Doumeki one long second too long to look for the explanation as to _why_.

He didn't realise what was going on until he heard the gunshot, and saw Watanuki cry out in pain and crumple at his feet.

And suddenly that distracting red was everywhere—all over Watanuki's slim body, but Doumeki couldn't do anything to help him, couldn't even pause to check whether he was still breathing, because there was a man on a rooftop twenty yards away with a gun pointed at both of them. Reflex response had Doumeki's gun off his shoulders before even the harsh tinkle of his guide's glasses shattering on the ground had faded. In the next heartbeat he'd fired a shot, scanned across the rooftop to spot a second man and fired two more. Both bodies collapsed without another sound. A bullet whizzed past him, missing by a good couple of feet to impact harmlessly into the ground some distance behind him. Doumeki fired again in answer at an adjacent rooftop, and a third man fell almost without a sound.

After that, there was silence. Doumeki forced himself to wait until the count of twenty, scanning everywhere in sight for any sign of any more, before finally he could take it no longer without dropping to Watanuki's side. He was conscious but barely, eyes defocused in pain, breathing harsh and laboured. The bullet had struck him in the shoulder, but Watanuki was losing blood fast. There was a first aid kit in the bottom of the pack, and Doumeki scrabbled for it, yanking the damnable sheet they'd come for out of the way. If Watanuki was going to have any chance of surviving the long bike trip back to the camp, they needed to get pressure on that wound—and fast.

Nothing would have made him leave his gun behind, but the pack stayed where he'd dropped it when he finally began to drag Watanuki away. On the ground behind them the blood stains hissed and faded, but Doumeki never looked back to see.

* * *

When Watanuki began to come back to himself through the dull haze of pain, the first thing he heard was a voice say, "Chii?"

When his good eye began to focus—as best it could without his glasses and under the influence of whatever painkillers they had him on—the first thing he saw was the blurry shape of a slim, pale figure leaning over him. It was so unfamiliar that at first Watanuki was left completely at a loss to figure out where he was, or even to remember any of the events of the past month or two.

Then he heard a voice say, "Kimihiro is waking up," and suddenly his field of vision became a whole lot more crowded.

Someone in the room started sniffling—happy or sad he couldn't tell—then the door banged open and an irritatingly familiar young voice was saying, "He's awake?" only to be shushed quickly by someone else, followed by some other exchange he couldn't follow.

"So he is!" said a voice, coming from a shaggy, white, head-shaped thing that could only have been Fye. "You can understand me alright, can't you? Welcome back!"

"W... who...?" Watanuki managed, glancing back and forth from Fye to the mystery figure.

"Ah, of course," said Fye. "Watanuki Kimihiro, I'd like you to meet Chi."

"Chii?" said 'Chi' again, gradually starting to resolve into a pretty, young girl with pale hair so long Watanuki couldn't see where it ended. There was something seriously wrong about her ears, but for a moment he couldn't figure out what.

"Where did...?" he asked vaguely.

"Chi lives in the lab most of the time," said Fye.

The lab he'd never been allowed to enter, Watanuki remembered—not that that made anything about this make very much more sense.

"Forgive us for choosing such an awkward time to make introductions," Fye went on, "but she doesn't get to meet new people much, and somehow we never quite got around to it until now."

"But..." said Watanuki, quite sure he didn't deserve this so soon after such an ordeal. "...all this time?" Surely he wasn't being told he'd just been introduced to a girl who was kept locked in the lab most of her life?

"She's a computer," said Doumeki, always the voice of reason, speaking from somewhere just outside his useful field of vision.

"She's...?" he repeated, barely comprehending.

"You have heard of computers before, Kimihiro?" Fye's voice again.

"A bit, but..."

"No, not many people would have seen one quite so fine as our Chi out in this country," said Fye, happily picking up for him. "You can see why we have to be so careful who we let her meet, I'm sure. Anyway, if you hadn't gathered, Chi's the one who lets us intercept the weather reports being passed between the Complexes, amongst other things. We've even been lucky enough to be able to get hold of some old medical programs for her. She's done a splendid job of patching you up, under the circumstances."

Even while his head was spinning with all this information, Watanuki was finally beginning to feel as though there was ground under his feet again—though it did keep moving around like a minor earthquake was taking place.

"Do you remember what happened?" Fye asked, more seriously.

"I think so," Watanuki replied. There'd been those men in the city, aiming at them, and then a terrible pain... instinctively, he flexed his left arm, and instantly regretted it.

Through the haze of pain which returned full force, Watanuki could dimly make out Sakura talking, her voice still betrayed some sniffles. "You mustn't move your arm! Chi says you'll make a full recovery—you'll be absolutely fine—but you can't start moving around yet!"

"They only hit you in the shoulder, luckily enough," said Fye, "but you'd lost a lot of blood by the time you got back here. We had to give you a transfusion just so you'd make it through. You've got Doumeki to thank for that. On top of taking care of your attackers and carrying you back, that is."

_Doumeki._ For a moment Watanuki panicked, before he realised Doumeki was in the room and had spoken already, and showed no signs of being any the worse for wear for their ordeal.

"He's quite alright," said Fye, apparently reading Watanuki's mind again. "Hasn't gone far since he got you back here. Everyone's fine."

"We're all here," said the young voice, coming from a figure who gradually began to resolve into Syaoran. "Everyone except Kurogane."

"He's out on a very important errand," Sakura added quickly. "But I'm sure he'll come to look in on you as soon as he gets back."

There was a rough sensation in Watanuki's throat and chest that was distinctly familiar, but which he was sure he hadn't felt in a long while. He suddenly felt in even more need of something to drink.

"He should have something to eat before he gets too tired again," said Chi. "Then we should let him get some more rest."

"I can make the leftovers into some soup," Sakura volunteered immediately.

"And I, alas, really must be getting back to work," said Fye. "But I'm sure you're not going to lack for visitors, like them or not."

One by one, the others began filing out of the room, until only Doumeki and Chi were left there with him.

Ordinarily, Watanuki wouldn't have minded the company, but as so often happened with Doumeki, the silence became less comfortable as the minutes ticked past. Even though most of the world was still little more than a blur, he couldn't shake the feeling he was being glared at.

"Don't you have something else you should be doing?" he complained half-heartedly.

"You jumped into the way," said Doumeki.

It took Watanuki all of a confusing moment to realise what the idiot was getting at. "Of course I did!" he spluttered. "Otherwise they would've shot _you!_ "

"You thought it would be better if you got shot instead?"

"Well, yes I did!" Watanuki argued. "You were the one with the gun and any hope of defending us if you weren't all full of bullet holes!" _And they may have wanted me alive,_ he couldn't help thinking. They'd known what they were doing, aiming at Doumeki first.

"That's what you were thinking when you jumped?"

"No, I was thinking, _Oh no, those nasty looking men with guns are going to shoot that fool who isn't looking where he's going!_ I didn't have time to sit down and analyse things, I just reacted." He tried to match Doumeki's defiant stare, but after a minute he faltered and had to look away.

"It worked, didn't it? They didn't hit me anywhere that mattered," he offered sullenly.

"They could have."

"Didn't have time to stop and think about that either, _thank you very much_."

Silence went on long enough for Watanuki to give up on getting any further reply on that subject, for better or worse. "Who do you think they were?" he wondered aloud.

"They must be new to this area," said Doumeki. "Hostile gangs don't last long around here."

"Thanks to you," said Watanuki quietly.

"There's worse than me around here," said Doumeki. "Our neighbours take care of most of them."

There was quiet again for a minute.

"We got lucky, didn't we?" said Watanuki. "We both got out of there, and at least we got that sheet we needed..."

"I left it behind," said Doumeki, bland as ever.

Watanuki very nearly forgot his strict instructions not to move (on pain of really nasty pain), the urge to sit up was so strong. "You— _what?_ Why!?"

"Dropped the pack somewhere," Doumeki shrugged. "It wasn't important."

"But after we went through all that..." Watanuki could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Can't we go back for it, or..."

"Too late," Doumeki cut in. "You've been unconscious for more than a day. The storm ended hours ago. Fye will be checking how bad the damage is now."

"But how could..." Watanuki protested helplessly.

"It doesn't matter," said Doumeki firmly, just as Sakura came back in with the soup and finally brought the conversation to an end.

* * *

"Unusual to see you here yourself, especially alone," said Kamui as the bike pulled up in front of him. "Would I be right in supposing it's not another simple rainstorm that inspired this visit?"

"There's a new gang in the area," said Kurogane, his posture stiff and unreadable. "One of ours took down three of them, but there could be more."

Kamui gave him just long enough to make sure that was all Kurogane had to say before replying. "Why would you come so far for information like this? We'll deal with them when we encounter them, the same as all the others. It isn't news of any great value to us."

"We don't want to be paid for it," said Kurogane. "All we're asking is that when you do find them, you don't show them any mercy."

The two men studied each other critically for a moment before Kamui said, "Understood," and Kurogane turned back towards home.

* * *

The next time Doumeki was woken up unexpectedly it was Watanuki who was shaking him awake. "You have to come with me," he was saying.

It was the middle of the night; Watanuki was little more than a dark silhouette leaning over him. The encounter with the other gang still loomed in far too recent memory, Watanuki had only been declared well enough to be up and about a few days previously, and then only with his duties curtailed and his arm wrapped in a sling most of the time. Seeing—or mostly hearing him—like this made Doumeki just slightly uncomfortable.

"Where?" he asked.

"There's something we have to go find," said Watanuki evasively. "It's...oh, think of it like just another supply mission."

"In the middle of the night?"

"He'll only take us while the full moon is out," said Watanuki, starting to rise to his feet.

Doumeki caught him by the wrist. "This isn't going to be like last time, is it?"

"Like... oh, nothing like," said Watanuki quickly. "He's a completely different kind of spirit—a safe one. But if we don't go now, we're not going to get another chance."

Doumeki frowned. "If you're sure," he said, getting out of bed.

* * *

Doumeki had lived through enough midnight surprise attacks to have picked up the knack for going from asleep to fully alert as quickly as possible at odd hours of the night. And yet, later, he'd have to wonder whether he'd been properly awake for any of the trip that followed. It was one of the most dreamlike experiences of his life.

Watanuki's directions took them far out into the Deadlands, in what direction Doumeki would not later recall. The torch he'd brought with them illuminated a small area ahead of the bike, but not even the light of the full moon overhead did much to resolve the surrounding landscape beyond a mess of dark shapes. The place they stopped at last was shrouded in even deeper shadow than the land around, though whether by dense trees, sheer hills or old buildings, Doumeki could either not remember, or never managed to make out at all. Before them, a flight of stairs lead downwards, deep underground.

They left the torch with the bike, but the space which opened up at the bottom of the staircase was lit somehow with a pale, silvery light—just enough to illuminate the shapes around them in monochrome and faded blues. On either side of a wide central corridor, Doumeki saw rooms walled with glass, filled with stacks or shelves of books or clothes or all manner of other things he couldn't recognise. This was a place from the old world—that much was obvious, but whereas most of the places Watanuki had brought him before may have seemed unnaturally well preserved, this once scarcely felt to have ever been abandoned at all. Things may have closed down for the night, but in the morning, it felt almost like life might go on in this place as though the terms 'Before' and 'After' meant nothing special at all.

Watanuki lead them unerringly past any number of rooms and around several corners where the corridor branched. At last, they came to a room where row upon row of glasses sat stacked in display structures, custom designed to show them off. Doumeki waited at the doorway while Watanuki vanished inside, hunting around somewhere just out of sight for several minutes before he finally re-emerged again. Brand new glasses, both lenses intact and whole, sat perched on his nose.

As he stepped outside again, Doumeki couldn't resist taking one last, long look around the corridor in which they stood. There were things here which no-one in his generation would ever have seen or even heard of before. This place held enough treasures to dwarf all of Watanuki's other finds together.

A hand on his arm made him turn to look Watanuki in the face. His guide had his other hand resting lightly on the pane of his glasses that covered his sightless eye.

"These are all we're allowed to take," he said. "The rest has to be left for later."

"Later?" asked Doumeki.

"When it's needed," Watanuki said simply.

Doumeki didn't ask when that was going to be.

They arrived home again as the full moon was setting, and Doumeki fell into bed almost at once and slept through until morning. When he woke, he might have wondered whether any of it had really happened at all, if it hadn't been for the evidence of the new glasses there to see whenever he looked at Watanuki's face.


	7. Interlude: Syaoran and Kamui

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book 1 of this thing is complete as of the previous chapter - Books 2 and 3 still to go, both of them around 10K longer than the first (final edits are still coming along nicely so far).
> 
> Originally, I had a number of side-stories planned to go with this thing - mostly missing scenes between various side characters, plus a couple of the pornier bits from between the scenes of later chapters (which was pretty ambitious considering that I'd yet to build up the guts to write anything stronger than a PG rating at that point in my ficcing career). Only one of those side-stories ever got written, however - that being a short prequel scene going into the first time Syaoran and Kamui met face-to-face. For lack of any better place to work it into the narrative, I'll leave it here.

There was a time when Kurogane and Doumeki had been the ones who journeyed to share news of ill winds on the horizon, but Kurogane had never had much patience for dealing with Fuuma in person, and it had worn thinner with every visit. In those days, Syaoran left the camp hardly more than Sakura herself – going far beyond the border made him twitchy. When Kurogane at last convinced himself that his personal presence on their diplomatic missions was nonessential, and at once that Syaoran had been allowed to cling to their boundaries for too long, it was very nearly a devastating mistake.

"Where is Kurogane?" Kamui inquired at their arrival. "Am I to read sinister meaning into your appearance in his absense?"

"No meaning but the usual one. Storm due in tomorrow," Doumeki explained, keeping as brief as he could get away with. "Kurogane sent us to take care of it,"

"And this is?" Kamui eyed Syaoran, who had looked just about ready to leap on anything that moved since they arrived.

"He's called Syaoran," said Doumeki. "He's been with our camp for as long as I have." Longer, in actuality, though that was beside the point.

"So now Kurogane sends children to deal in his place?" said Kamui, unimpressed.

"Oi!" blurted Syaoran.

Doumeki glared at him, but it didn't have much effect. "Kid needs the experience away from camp."

"If that were the case, why wouldn't Kurogane accompany the boy himself? Has keeping our goodwill lost value to him?"

"Oi!" said Syaoran, louder, not taking well to being ignored. "Just what are you trying to say about Kurogane?"

"If he leaves such tasks to his underlings, that he's a schemer or a coward," said Kamui.

Those were also the days when, in Syaoran's limited world experience, Kurogane held a position of respect that not even Fye, with all his incomprehensible technological wizardry, truly shared. Syaoran didn't understand that Kamui was in the habit of bitching just for the sake of bitching, or that Doumeki would have been able to end the subject peacefully within a few more exchanges. Such blatant insult to Kurogane's reputation did not sit well with him.

The exchange that followed was over almost as quickly as it happened. Syaoran leapt at Kamui, lightning fast, but the slim, young man moved faster. With no more than two blurred motions of Kamui's hands, Syaoran had been thrown back again to land flat on his back several paces away.

Doumeki took the one action available that wouldn't result in them both getting killed: he turned away from Kamui and pointed his own gun at Syraoran's head. "If you want either of us to leave here alive, don't get up."

The boy's eyes were wide with shock – both at Kamui's demonstration and Doumeki's betrayal, and he didn't move an inch. When ten seconds had passed without either of them collapsing in a spray of blood, Doumeki let himself turn around again, slowly.

Kamui looked angry, but not murderous, which was probably a damn sight better than they deserved after that display.

"Let me apologise for my companion's behaviour," said Doumeki, sincerely. "He's too stupid to know better. We'll waive the fee for this trip."

"You'd do well to teach him better manners before he gets you into worse trouble," said Kamui. His posture radiated danger.

"I'll see to it personally," Doumeki promised. "Get up," he told Syaoran. "We're going."

For the first twenty minutes of the journey from there to the Tower, Syaoran was silent.

"Shizuka, I'm sorry," he said at last, hesitantly. "I... nearly got us into a lot of trouble, didn't I?"

"You nearly got us killed," said Doumeki. "The Diet Building is known to kill people for much less than what you did today. As soon as we got close to the building, there were sentinels watching us, and they would have shot you where you stood if they thought Kamui under any real threat. If he didn't finish you himself first."

"But... what he said about Kurogane..."

"People like him get to say what they like." "How does he move that fast?" asked Syaoran, nervous.

"He wasn't made leader of the Diet Building without reason," said Doumeki, knowing the answer 'no-one has any idea' wouldn't satisfy Syaoran remotely.

"I've never seen anyone move like that before," Syaoran admitted, near breathlessly.

"Fuuma of the Tower is reputed to be an even match for him."

"The Tower – where we're going next?"

"Right."

When they got there, both Fuuma and Syaoran were much better behaved.


	8. Book 2-1

By the time Watanuki's wound had begun fading to an old scar, winter had well and truly set in. This was the bad time of year, when there was rarely enough fuel to keep them all as warm as they'd have liked, and never enough sunshine to keep Fye's solar panels working at even half their capacity. The security system and electric fence, which had been fired up to a level Fye cheerfully described to the rest of them as 'crispy' in the weeks after Watanuki's injury, was returned back to its lowest setting to conserve power. Even Chi would spend much of the winter in standby mode.

It could have been far worse though, back in the days when acid storms had been more common. At least fresh water was never in short supply this time of year. Doumeki had heard it used to snow in this part of the country, back in the days Before – the rain turning to white flakes of ice that buried the world for weeks on end. He could hardly picture what it must have been like himself.

Of course, that was back in the 'better days' – a time that was little more than a story to anyone of his age or younger. He had grown up in this world, but he had also grown up knowing everything about his world was _wrong_. His generation had grown up like the first children born to pioneers in a newly settled land, raised on stories of the old country – one somehow more real than the one his eyes and ears could tell him about. It was going to take a few more generations yet before that went away.

Still, that day might be coming faster than it should be. People died young these days, and even Kurogane and Fye were only old enough that the world from Before was a faint, childhood memory, if that. The stories Fye told about it were ones he'd heard in his own childhood and learned to repeat, and as with all of Fye's stories, their accuracy was somewhat questionable. Fye never let the truth get in the way of a good tale.

* * *

There was never another sighting made of the gang that had attacked Doumeki and Watanuki in the old city. If any members had survived both that encounter and life in a region ruled by the likes of Kamui and Fuuma for this long, it would have been better luck than most of their sort enjoyed. By the time Fye was forced to downgrade their security again for the winter, no-one felt greatly threatened by it.

Chi could never be taken completely offline though, not when a new weather forecast could come in at any time. As the years passed and the storms became less frequent, people had grown bolder and were less and less prepared for those that came, so the value of knowing for sure when the next was due was worth every minute Fye spent slaving over her upkeep. Communication between the Complexes went by radio waves or satellite – old technology that anyone could intercept, but without equipment of Chi's calibre it would be indecipherable. As very probably the only working computer outside of the Complexes, Chi was Fye's pride and joy. If rival gangs ever learned about her, not even the electric fence would keep them out for long.

Chi could draw them maps of anywhere they might want to go too, and could update them whenever the Complexes sent each other word the landscape was changing again. Even gang movement would come in with the news sometimes. No messages ever went out from her that might be traced back to a source – all she did was listen. (Why she had to look like she was a she or even a human, Doumeki had never understood, he would have preferred his machines to look like what they were, but at least it made her interface easy to deal with. Fye had keyboards and monitors he could hook up to her ears, but mostly people just asked her their questions and she answered them, or drew them maps in the sand with her fingers.)

Though there were no more acid storms that year, shortly before midwinter, Chi retrieved a message of a different kind – the first of a very interesting sequence which followed over the next few days.

The nearest Complex to Kurogane's campsite was hours away, and a fairly modest example of its species. However, there was another, much grander one a few weeks journey south – further than anyone would regularly travel in country like this. The messages reported that the harvest had been good there – they had more food this year than they could either use or store. Nonetheless, supplies of other raw materials were growing thin. In their eyes, it was the ideal time to organise some trade.

But the closer Complex – their nearest neighbour with the desired supplies – seemed to feel differently. Their own harvest had been less plentiful, but far from dire, and their stores would be more than ample to see them through the coming year. They were open to trade, but saw no need to make such a long journey through the hostile country that separated the two Complexes in the dead of winter. If the need remained in the spring, then perhaps – and the 'perhaps' as Fye relayed it sounded very uncertain indeed – some kind of arrangement might be made.

The members of Kurogane's camp listened in with interest as those messages went back and forth without resolution, relayed by Chi and occasionally translated again by Fye where the official terminology got a bit thick. Watanuki and the two younger members of their group didn't have any clear idea what the fuss was about, but to Kurogane and Fye – and to Doumeki with a little thought – the news began to raise some very interesting possibilities indeed.

* * *

"Not your usual news," Fuuma said to Doumeki, after being delivered a summarised version of the tale while he lounged against an old wall. In the middle of a wasteland, Fuuma could still find something to lounge against when he wanted it. He sounded interested, if possibly not for the right reasons.

"Here's part of the list of what they're looking for – and what it's worth to them," said Doumeki, passing the list over. Fuuma gave it a cursory glance.

"I take it you're suggesting we might be interested in doing some trading ourselves," he said thoughtfully. "But that's an awfully long way to go for a little food. Always a useful resource, but we're not exactly starved for it around here, if you understand my problem."

"This isn't any old dead animal," said Doumeki. "The food they're offering is vegetable matter – the kind with all the nutrients we get least of out here. It'll be processed to the point that it would keep for ages as long as it's kept safe and cool. They were offering extra as compensation for the journey too."

"Sounds like you feel you've come across some valuable information," said Fuuma, looking at them over his sunglasses.

"It's no use to us as is," Doumeki admitted. "We have some of the supplies they want, but we can't spare the people or the vehicles for a journey like that. We need transport and protection to make use of this."

"And in return, we get to do some trading of our own," Fuuma surmised, holding up the list. "Though you did say, this is only _part_ of the list of what they wanted."

And here they came to the messy part of this. "Part of it we're keeping. The rest, we gave to the Diet Building."

Fuuma's smile never even flickered.

"We're not in a position where we can afford to take sides with information like this," said Doumeki firmly.

"And what did _our Kamui_ have to say about your proposal?" Fuuma asked, in one of those tones that could have Syaoran puzzling over it for weeks.

"He's considering it," Doumeki reported. "We'll hear from them if they decide to accept. Someone from our camp will be travelling with whoever takes us up on the offer – both parties together, if it comes to that. The Complex won't know we're coming, and we can't guarantee they'll trade with us, but they've dealt with outsiders in the past. We're willing to risk it."

"A very unusual proposition indeed," Fuuma concluded.

"Well?"

"Naturally, you'll have to give us a chance to decide whether we've got these supplies to spare," said Fuuma. "And whether we can spare the people and the fuel. You'll hear from us if we decide to take you up on it."

* * *

"They're both being vague about it," Syaoran reported to Kurogane later. "Neither will give us just a yes or a no."

"After all these years of complaining we never bring them good news," Kurogane grumbled.

"We've gone and made it political for them," said Fye. "They'll probably both be spying on the other now to see whether they'll be going."

"They're not going to want to travel together, are they?" said Syaoran.

"Not in principle," said Fye, "but neither of them will want to risk being the ones who _don't_ go, either. I think we might have handled this quite nicely. I wouldn't worry about Fuuma – he always has to be mysterious about things, it's just his nature – or persona, or whatever you want to call it."

"You've never met Fuuma," said Kurogane.

"I might've done," said Fye. "I didn't grow up all that far from here. You and I didn't meet far from here either."

"If you had met him, you'd have told us about it." Kurogane gritted his teeth. "At length."

"Not if it didn't make much of a story. I could've done _all_ kinds of things you don't know about!" said Fye. Kurogane rolled his eyes.

Whether he'd ever met Fuuma or Kamui or not, Fye's prediction was spot on. Messengers came from both the Diet Building and the Tower the very following day, arriving only an hour apart. Even the day for departure each wanted was the same, which was interesting in all sorts of ways which probably only Fye could have hoped to make sense of.

From there, all that remained was to finalise their own plans and make ready for the journey.

* * *

Watanuki looked almost betrayed when he was relayed the news. "You'll be gone a _month_?"

"You want to come too?" said Doumeki, not really offering.

Watanuki looked at him in disgust. "To a Complex? Are you mad? Do you have any _idea_ what they do to people? Do you have any idea how many people die _cursing_ them out here?"

"Rather not," said Doumeki, skipping the whole belief thing for once. "We don't get to be picky who we trade with."

"And what about the company you're going to be keeping? You're going to spend the whole trip making sure they don't all kill each other!"

"No-one from the Tower and the Diet Building ever kill each other," said Doumeki. To Watanuki's disbelieving look, he clarified, "They fight all the time, but there aren't any fatalities. There'd be no-one left on either side by now if they did. It's only outsiders they kill."

Watanuki took on one of those familiar looks, of the sort that meant he'd once again concluded that not only was everyone in this camp insane, the problem had spread to everyone else in the rest of the region too – excepting him, and he wasn't even sure about that anymore.

If this was the last Doumeki was going to see of him before he left, it wouldn't be an inappropriate last impression.

* * *

On a journey like this one, the biggest issue was inevitably going to be transport. Fuel was always in short supply, and they'd be traversing dangerous country. There'd be no opportunity to refuel along the way, and certainly no way to carry as much as they'd need for the whole journey.

The Tower's solution was admirably low-tech. The vehicle that appeared at Kurogane's camp on the scheduled day consisted of a wide, covered cart, harnessed to a team of Deadlands beasts – a variety Doumeki had often seen in great herds in the wild. They were low built and long-necked, some strange mix of bird and mammal by appearance, barely domesticated, but tame enough in their handler's care. It wasn't the fastest mode of travel, but even with the loaded cart they could keep up a steady pace all day, and the only fuel they needed was the poison grass that covered the Deadlands soil.

The handler who came with them was a young girl who cheerfully introduced herself to Doumeki and the Diet Building's team as Nekoi Yuzuriha. Along with the cart team she was also accompanied by a tame Deadlands wolf – larger than any breed that had existed back Before – which she called Inuki, and doted on with obvious affection. Doumeki had never met her before, but had some passing familiarity with her reputation nonetheless. Despite her age, she was known for having a way with animals unsurpassed across the country.

Accompanying her was a rather more sombre young woman a few years her senior who introduced herself as Kishu Arashi. In contrast to Yuzuriha's bubbly cheer, Arashi was quiet and serious, aloof in a manner that appeared to owe little to ego and much to a burden of heavy responsibility, assumed without resentment from a young age. Doumeki never once saw her handle a visible weapon, yet she carried herself as if armed at all times.

The vehicle sent by the Diet Building bore little resemblance to the Tower's, being constructed like a well-loaded tank. Information about just what fuelled or propelled it was never volunteered, and neither Doumeki nor the Tower team ever bothered to ask. At any rate, it kept pace with the cart without difficulty as the miles went past.

The team that came with it consisted of two men, both some years older than the girls who'd arrived fro the Tower. One, by the name of Kusanagi Shiyu, appeared to have been selected to provide most of the muscle, for he arrived well-armed and carried his gun with him with the familiarity of someone used to treating it like an extra limb. He was heavily built to go with it, but despite what should have made for a daunting appearance, he quickly turned out to be as open and amicable as anyone could have asked. His companion, Kigai Yuuto, was scarcely less friendly at face value, but he kept something more of a careful distance between himself and whoever he might have been engaging with. It was not difficult to surmise that if Kusanagi was to provide the muscle, Yuuto had been chosen to deal with negotiations; nor was it difficult for Doumeki to imagine this was the sort of man who would always listen and think twice as much as he spoke.

Altogether, even with Doumeki and everyone sent by both the larger groups, it still added up to a very small party for a mission of this kind.

"What do we do if we meet someone unfriendly?" he asked the others, frowning.

"We're expecting to be left alone, mostly," Kusanagi replied. "The emblems of the Tower and the Diet Building are so well known for miles around that they'd have to be very brave and stupid to give us any trouble."

"Then what if we meet someone stupid?" asked Doumeki. "Stupid and armed."

"Then I suppose they'll find out why giving us trouble will be stupid," said Yuuto. "We came prepared for this, don't you worry." "We will know well in advance if anyone approaches," Arashi announced mysteriously. Yuuto and Kusanagi both looked at her questioningly and exchanged glances with one another, but she showed no inclination she intended to elaborate further.

"Well, if the young lady says so, I'm sure we can trust her," said Kusanagi, uncertain but apparently content. "An early warning certainly never does any harm."

Ambiguous as it all was, Doumeki decided that trusting that they all knew what they were talking about wouldn't be any problem. The Tower and the Diet Building had enough invested in the safety of their teams to have thought of anything Doumeki might concern himself with long before anyone was ready to set out.

* * *

And so the journey began.

The trip they took was, for the most part, long and dull. The pace they made was decent, but even if they kept it up there would be many days ahead of them. The wastelands didn't afford them much to look at in the way of scenery – just endless, brown hills, sparsely covered with poison grasses, maybe the odd knot of twisted trees here and there, and perhaps the occasional sighting of a flock of giant Deadland birds passing overhead. There wasn't much to do besides sit and watch the countryside go by, and only the five of them (and most of them strangers) for company. If tensions between the two groups had started off high going into all that boredom, things could have gotten very nasty indeed.

It was fortunate, then – and in retrospect, obviously prudent – that neither of the two great powers had selected anyone for the trip who harboured the infamous mutual resentment between the two groups as something huge and personal. Beyond that, the two vehicles should have meant there was relatively little need for them to interact at all during the day, but that changed quickly when Yuzuriha and Kusanagi hit it off so quickly that they were talking like old friends before they broke camp on the second day. Even Inuki, who would tolerate Arashi in small doses but was inclined to snap at everyone else, took to him right away, and by midway through that first evening, was quite content to stretch out on his back at Kusanagi's feet to invite the man to scratch his stomach. It quickly became obvious that the way to Yuzuriha's heart was to make friends with her dog.

On the second day, Kusanagi moved from his own vehicle to the Tower's cart, where he and Yuzuriha spent the day in animated conversation. To balance up the loads, Doumeki added his weight to the other vehicle, taking Kusanagi's seat in the small cabin space. Although the controls made little sense to him personally, driving took little of Yuuto's concentration, and he initially made a number of attempts at getting Doumeki talking on a variety of subjects. After a morning's worth of Doumeki's typically monosyllabic answers, however, he caught on to the fact his companion was not going to be much of a conversationalist, and was content to pass the rest of the day in silence, only occasionally glancing wistfully out the window towards the cart.

They varied the arrangement later on, when people began to feel like a change, so that Kusanagi moved back to his own vehicle with Yuzuriha, while the other three took the cart. Yuuto made another attempt at starting up a conversation with Arashi, but finding her no more talkative than Doumeki, he later took to squeezing back into the cabin of the Diet Building's vehicle. There were only two seats inside so this version required Yuzuriha to sit on Kusangi's lap, which Arashi did not seem to much approve of. However, neither she nor Doumeki much minded being left in each other's company. Both were quite content to pass most of the trip in contemplative silence.

It was only around the campfire in the evenings that the whole group found itself gathered in the same place at once. It was then that some of the more interesting topics of conversation which Doumeki would be privy to in the following weeks came up.

"Surely we have met before," Yuuto said to Arashi during their meal on the third night. "There was that incident with the stray herd of Deadlands beasts all those months ago which we were both present for."

Arashi looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. "I remember. Though I do not recall seeing yourself there."

"Only at a distance," said Yuuto. "Not much of a proper introduction, but I thought I recognised you. I've a good memory for faces. You nearly sliced a young friend of mine open, as I recall."

"Ah?" said Arashi vaguely, neither proud nor apologetic of this fact, regardless of its accuracy.

"Wait, when was that?" Yuzuriha piped up, from where she'd been engaged in some newly invented game with Inuki which had been bringing her in and out of the circle of firelight for the last few minutes. "Was I there?"

"That would have been... just at the beginning of the month before last, wouldn't it?" said Kusanagi, setting aside a half-cleaned gun. "Ah... some sort of debate about animal ownership and boundaries? How did that get started again?"

"Hm... something about a group of our hunters following a herd too far into their territory?" Yuuto suggested. "Or was it the other way around?"

"No matter how we may try to claim them, the big herds will always stray," observed Arashi. "Yuzuriha, you should remember – you and Inuki were involved that day too."

"Of course, that was the one!" Yuzuriha exclaimed. "Kusanagi-san, you were there too?"

"Somewhere at the back of things," said Kusanagi, "but I definitely didn't see either you or Inuki anywhere." At the sound of his name, Inuki gave a small whine and deposited his oversized head in Kusanagi's lap in a meaningful way which indicated he expected a good scratch.

Yuzuriha turned back to her companion again. "Arashi, wasn't that the day Sorata got that really bad bump on his head, and you..."

"It was," Arashi cut her off smoothly before she could go on. There was a small cough from the other side of the fire.

"Sorata – that's scruffy looking guy with the big grin? Er... that one may have been me," Kusanagi admitted, with a guilty smile.

"He was fine," Arashi said simply. "His head is hard enough to take far worse."

Inuki gave another whine to indicate he didn't feel he was getting nearly enough attention.

Despite being left out of the conversation, Doumeki listened with odd fascination. Serious conflict between two of the greatest powers in this side of the country was being made to sound a bit like a badly-run sporting event.

* * *

The other time of day which sometimes brought them all together for a while was noon, when Yuzuriha would always insist on letting her cart team stop for a rest. If it turned out that one of them had gotten something stuck in its foot, or if Kusanagi and Yuuto got caught up in another debate over whether they were using the compass correctly or whether someone had been holding the map upside down, departure could be delayed for quite some time, but at least there was no pressing need to rush. Being quite useless to everyone at these sort of points, and relatively confident of Arashi's assurance they'd know if anyone else was approaching, Doumeki often used those opportunities to stretch his legs a bit while the sky was still light.

It was on one of those times that Arashi – despite being quite silent next to him on the cart all day – approached him for a talk.

At the time, Doumeki was simply standing alone, staring out into the Deadlands that surrounded them on all sides. He heard footsteps as she came up behind him, though she did not speak at first. If she was wondering precisely what he was looking at she did so in silence.

"Is it strange for you?" she inquired thoughtfully. "To be travelling with two groups who have been at war with each other for so long?"

Doumeki turned back to face her, thinking about the question. "You don't act like you're at war."

A change in the breeze brought the sounds of the voices to them from where the vehicles were waiting; snippets of the men's speech and Yuzuriha's laughter. It sounded as though they wouldn't have much longer to wait here today.

"I suppose we don't, in this place," said Arashi, turning to look back towards the others. "There's no call for it."

Doumeki followed her gaze. "The conflict between the Tower and the Diet Building," he wondered aloud, "is it really everyone's battle, or is it just Kamui and Fuuma who have the vendetta, and everyone else follows?"

There was another, even longer pause, while Arashi considered her answer.

"I think that even if both Kamui and Fuuma were to leave us, nothing else would change," she said at last, toying idly with a strand of her hair. "But perhaps... this feud has its own role to play in our survival. This is not a peaceful world we live in. We can never afford to forget that, even when times are good. To have such a close neighbour to remind us is something – perhaps – we should be thankful for."

There was a level of truth to her words – the kind of truth that had existed unspoken for so long, that by the time Doumeki heard it for the first time spoken aloud, there was no surprise left.

"Maybe we should," he agreed.


	9. Book 2-2

The Complex first appeared as a mass of distant, bubble-like shapes on the plains far ahead, the terrain being flat enough that it was visible long before they got close. Doumeki had been near the Complexes only a handful of times in his life – they'd loomed out of Fye's stories in his mind as something only half-understood. He'd never done anything like this before.

"Well, Doumeki," said Yuuto, passing a pair of binoculars to Kusanagi, "you're the one with the information. What do we do from here?"

"Look for something that looks like an entrance," said Doumeki. "We stop at least a few dozen metres away, so we look less threatening. They'll know we're here for a reason once they see us."

Yuuto exchanged a quick glance with the others. "Alright. At this pace, we should be there by tomorrow."

As instructed, they made their next camp an easy stroll from the greatest outer dome of the Complex, and settled down to wait.

Outsiders wouldn't often approach a Complex without a reason. The legendary wealth held within made them an obvious target for desperate gangs, but the equally legendary security made raiding a Complex roughly as advisable as quenching one's thirst with acid rainwash. Raids were rare these days, but the Complex security was still notoriously distrustful of outsiders. It was in the best interests of everyone from the trading mission that they look as friendly as possible. If stories were to be believed, a Complex of this power would have the means to kill them where they stood.

"I fell a bit like we should be raising a white flag or something," said Yuuto, rubbing the back of his neck. He glanced at Doumeki, who shrugged.

"Do you think they'd know the emblems for the Tower and the Diet Building here?" Yuzuriha wondered.

"Quite possible," said Kusanagi, stroking his chin, "though we're a long way from home."

Presently, a slim, rectangular section in the vast wall slid back and inwards, opening a doorway to admit a small group from within. It consisted of four men, all well armed and armoured in synthetic suits and helmets which left only a little of their faces visible. But for the odd scratch or dent, none of the uniforms looked well used, nor was there anything to distinguish one man from the next. You could get armour like it in the deadlands – strong enough to stop a bullet (at least in theory), though in practice one bullet would probably be the least of your worries if you needed armour like that. However, even the best armour only survived so much serious use, so when complete suits were seen at all, they tended to have been thrown together from whatever assorted pieces could be scrounged together. So many matching sets together were more than Doumeki had ever seen before.

They were serious looking men, and the weapons they were carrying looked like they were meant for serious use as well. Doumeki and Kusanagi had stowed their own weapons away out of sight – they wouldn't be good for anything but aggravating a Complex of this kind of size.

Oblivious to the mood, Yuzuriha waved to the men cheerfully as they approached. "Aren't they strange? They all look the same! Is everyone who lives in the Complexes like that?" she wondered aloud before Arashi shushed her up.

When they got close the men fanned out, guns pointed at the outsiders.

"Hello there!" Yuuto called, waving to them with his biggest smile. "No need to worry too much on our account. We came by the information we might have some supplies to trade."

"State your identity and purpose," said the nearest of the men, apparently the leader. In addition to the helmet, a dark visor covered his eyes.

"Time for introductions?" said Kusanagi. "It would be our pleasure, but I'm afraid our names won't mean much to you. Obviously, we're here to trade some goods. Didn't we have a list of everything we've got around here somewhere?"

Since they'd neglected to put the compiled list somewhere accessible before arriving, Yuuto had to go back to his vehicle to find it – an activity which all those men pointing guns at them did not much seem to appreciate. Inuki gave a low growl.

"Can't you point all those guns somewhere else?" Yuzuriha begged. "You're making Inuki nervous."

"Yuzuriha, Inuki is making them nervous," said Arashi.

"He's not going to hurt anyone!"

"They don't know that yet. Bear with it a little longer."

The list retrieved, it was accepted and examined at length by one of the men, leading to a huddled discussion between a couple while the rest kept their guns trained on the outsiders.

"You haven't come from another Complex."

"Oh, no, no, we're just representing a few groups of outsiders who happened to come across some useful information," said Yuuto. "We've come a very long way to get here."

"We need to show this to Administration," the leader concluded shortly, sending two of his men back to the Complex with the list.

The minutes after the Complex entryway closed once more stretched out without either of the two remaining men lowering their weapons. Doumeki quickly found himself itching for the familiar weight of his own gun, despite all better judgement which said it would only put him in worse danger.

"How long do you think they'll be?" Yuuto asked the men conversationally.

"However long Administration decides to take," replied the leader humourlessly. "It could be a while."

"It does involve border security," said his companion, sounding thoughtful, "that should cut out some of the bureaucracy." He wore glasses under his own helmet, which startled Doumeki for a moment when he first saw them, accustomed as he'd become to thinking of glasses as something unique to Watanuki.

"Ah," said Yuuto. "We could talk about the weather, perhaps?"

"Conversing with suspects isn't part of our job."

"Suspects?" said Yuzuriha. "What are we suspected of?"

"Being suspicious," Doumeki supplied.

"Are we that suspicious?"

"I know I am," said Kusanagi ruefully. "I wouldn't have been sent on this mission if I wasn't dangerous."

"To the Complexes, anyone from outside would be suspicious, correct?" asked Arashi.

The guards exchanged a flicker of a glance with each other.

Doumeki had had ample time to develop the impression that Yuuto could negotiate his way out of the middle of a gunfight, but the psychological effect of sending two young women such as the Tower had chosen was something he couldn't deny.

"You don't mind if we converse between ourselves a bit, I hope?" Yuuto asked. "Just to pass the time."

Eventually, the glasses-guard gave in, sat down and pulled off his helmet to reveal a middle-aged face and a head of neatly cropped dark hair. He introduced himself as Kazuhiko, and proved to be friendly only be comparison to his commanding officer – Gingestu, who was seemed roughly as eager to open up to strangers as the Complex walls, but who eventually followed his subordinate's example by removing his own helmet and lowering his gun. They both reminded Doumeki of Kurogane in some small way he couldn't quite put words to. They were more interested in listening than offering much contribution to the conversation of their own, but at least the wait was more relaxed than it would have been at continued gunpoint.

"They're going to be unhappy with us if we let you take us hostage," Kazuhiko admitted as he set his gun aside.

"We'll keep it in mind," said Yuuto, conversationally.

After a little under an hour, the Complex entry opened once more to admit a party of seven people, prompting the two guards to hurry back to their feet. Four more guards emerged, framing a small part of three figures in less defensive dress. The outermost clothes of those three still resembled some variety of armour, although it was much thinner and clearly not designed to support the same sort of heavy duty use. At their centre was a slim woman. She wore no helmet – it would be difficult to imagine how the wavy halo of dark hair that surrounded her head could ever be styled to fit inside one. She was quite stunningly beautiful.

"Allow me to introduce myself," she said, once she and her escort had reached them, her voice pleasantly melodious. "I am Oruha. I have been sent on behalf of the Complex to examine and negotiate for the goods you have offered us."

"Kigai Yuuto," Yuuto held out a hand with a broad smile. "A great pleasure to meet you." Unseen, his behaviour got him a glare from Kazuhiko, though Oruha herself beamed back at him, taking his hand in her own.

"Naturally, we would wish to begin by inspecting what you have brought," Oruha said.

"By all means," Yuuto replied, nodding to Arashi and Kusanagi, who moved out behind him to open compartments and remove covers as necessary. Permission duly granted, Oruha's two attendants stepped forward, the guards fanning out to cover the vehicles from all sides, leaving only Kazuhiko and Gingestu with her.

"You have sparked a great amount of curiosity regarding what you have brought us," said Oruha as her attendants carried out their task. "The similarity between the list you supplied and a request recently sent to a neighbouring Complex is too great to be coincidental."

"Ah? Well, I'm afraid I'm unable to do much to satisfy your curiosity on that account. The list was provided to us by a third party for a reasonable price; by what means they might have obtained it they didn't enlighten us." Not the slightest glance was directed towards Doumeki as this was reported. "But it's not unheard of for the Complexes to trade with outsiders."

"Nonetheless, the practice has faded much in recent years," said Oruha. "Trade will preferentially go between Complexes, provided the right goods are available. We have a vested interest in encouraging trade with our neighbours. With that in mind, I fear you may have been misled to anticipate a greater rate of compensation than we will be willing to provide you."

"I suppose some negotiations are going to be in order then," said Yuuto, smile never dimming.

"Once we have determined the quality of the goods you have brought us, I am sure some beneficial arrangement may be reached."

Doumeki decided it would be best to leave them to it.

* * *

Examining their luggage and settling on an exchanging rate turned into a longer process than Doumeki had any patience for. People went back and forth between their temporary camp and the Complex in streams, measuring, weighing, examining everything, and eventually bringing great, mechanised trolleys out to their vehicles. Goods were loaded and unloaded as Oruha and Yuuto made minor adjustments to the price of what must have been nearly every item, one or the other of them pausing now and then to send an attendant back to the Complex with a message or to check some detail with Doumeki or the Tower's party. The armed guards relaxed slightly as the day wore on, but never gave up their vigil. By the time the winter sun was beginning to sink low in the sky, however, the process was over at last, leaving them a good few useful hours of travelling time before sunset in which to relocate their camp to somewhere that would make the Complex Administration less nervous.

The food they'd come so far to get did not look like much, coming in the form of tightly packed, brownish pellets wrapped in some kind of synthetic fibre, the contents processed and reprocessed for storage until its original form was indistinguishable. It didn't taste of much either, when Doumeki was invited to try a sample, but against a lot of the outsiders' usual diet that would be something of a mercy. It was unusually filling too, which Oruha assured them wasn't the least misleading – there was a lot packed into even a small amount. Storage space was as important to the Complex as it was on the vehicles.

Yuuto and Oruha conveyed their goodbyes with vocal assurances of the pleasure of doing business with one another. The possibility that they might ever do so again was left undiscussed.

"After we came all that way they never even invited us in," Yuzuriha complained to Arashi as the cart pulled away. "Doesn't that seem a little rude?"

"Would we have invited an envoy from the Diet Building into the Tower?" Arashi asked her.

" _I_ would if it was Kusanagi," Yuzuriha pouted. Arashi simply sighed.

"Didn't you want to see the inside of a real Complex?" she asked Doumeki, who considered the question briefly.

"No," he concluded. "I wouldn't."

* * *

The return journey was pleasantly uneventful; however, when Doumeki got back at last, it was to discover that an aura of gloom had descended over his home camp. Syaoran was the one who pulled him aside to explain why. Watanuki had led them on two supply missions while Doumeki had been away – both of them busts. In the months since Watanuki had first joined their camp he'd lead them on eleven missions for which Doumeki had been present, and only one had failed to reward them with something they could use. This new trend had everyone uncomfortable. Kurogane might have told Watanuki officially that no-one was counting on his ability, but they'd all had just enough time to get used to it working reliably to really feel the blow of it being gone, and talents like Watanuki's made everyone that little bit superstitious. Whether this meant Watanuki's lucky streak was over, or whether this was all just some immature form of protest over Doumeki's extended absence, or whatever other reason, it didn't look good.

At least no-one here would ever have hit him for it, which was more relieving to both him and Watanuki than even the room full of bodies where the boy had been found could entirely explain.

Watanuki looked relieved to see him back, but only momentarily.

"It's _easier_ when you're around," he said angrily. Angry at having to justify himself all the time, angry at having to explain all this to someone he knew only halfway believed him, probably angrier still at having to give Doumeki credit for something he was blatantly unaware he was doing at all. "All the worst ghosts – the big ugly ones and the ones that only want to make trouble – they won't go near you. Don't ask me why, I've never seen that happen around anyone before," he added, with a certain amount of grudging awe. "And as soon as you left, they came back again."

Doumeki didn't know what to begin to make of this and didn't try. "The others think you were sulking about me being away." Or at least Kurogane and Syaoran did, or suspected it at least. Sakura didn't think things like that about anyone, and he never knew what Fye was thinking about anything.

"You still don't believe me, do you?" said Watanuki, hotly.

"I don't know what to believe," said Doumeki. All he knew for sure was that Watanuki was far too good at finding them what they needed for it to matter how he did it.

Watanuki glared at him, then gave up. "I had a dream while you were away," he said, looking back towards the camp. "About this guy who looked just like you."

"I'm not dead," said Doumeki firmly.

"Of course not," Watanuki snorted, "He couldn't have been _you_. He smiled far too much. All the time." Behind him, Doumeki went very still. Watanuki went on oblivious. "He said his name was Haruka."

"Stop there," said Doumeki.

Watanuki gave him one of his flickering glances. "He was your grandfather, wasn't he?"

Doumeki had Watanuki by the collar of his shirt before he knew what he was doing. "I told you to _shut_. _Up_ ," he said, voice low and dangerous.

Watanuki's eyes widened with shock, then settled quickly back into their usual angry defiance. It didn't matter now what Doumeki might or might not admit; Watanuki knew he'd scored a point. Fortunately, he was still wise enough to stay silent on the subject after that.

Doumeki spent the rest of the day trying to remember whether he'd ever mentioned Doumeki Haruka to anyone in the camp – anyone Watanuki might have spoken to. It wouldn't be like Doumeki to have given anything away – would have been even less like him to forget it if he had, but it wasn't impossible, and it was still easier to believe than the alternative.


	10. Book 2-3

Tensions between them were still strained from the incident when Watanuki led Doumeki on his first supply mission since their reunion. Not since his first days at their camp could he have ridden out under nearly so much pressure to succeed, but whether Doumeki's presence had anything to do with it or not, they were successful. They returned home with a pack stuffed with old boots—or at any rate, they must have been old to have been sitting where they'd found them, and no-one had the means to make shoes that well these days. But like so many of Watanuki's finds, they were in perfect condition, and more solid than any shoes Doumeki had worn in years.

They didn't talk about the argument they'd had after Doumeki's return again, though Watanuki had to have been thinking about it. More specifically, he probably thought Doumeki was being ridiculous about it—and he might even have been right on that account. However, he didn't want to be drawn into another confrontation with Doumeki—he'd do just about anything to avoid that now—and if staying silent on an uncomfortable subject was what it took, it was a price he was prepared to pay.

It should have made Doumeki feel guilty about how he was handling the issue—he'd certainly never meant to take advantage of Watanuki's subservient habits. But Doumeki was little inclined to give any part of the issue as much thought as that—any thought at all, if he could help it.

"Don't you think we've been putting a bit too much pressure on the poor boy lately?" Fye said to Kurogane (much to the latter's irritation) when they were alone, a few evenings after Doumeki had gotten back. "He's starting to feel like we don't trust him."

This was not a conversation Kurogane wanted to have—but nor, with Fye involved, was it one he would get out of. "I trust him," he replied, keeping the statement impersonally matter-of-fact. "It's his abilities we don't trust. He's in no position to complain. He doesn't trust them himself."

"Oh, Kuro," Fye sighed, "you make it sound so easy to separate the two!"

"He's known where I stand from the start," said Kurogane. "My opinion isn't the one that matters, anyway. Neither of us are the one he wants to believe in him."

"Oh, Shizuka may not know what he believes," said Fye, "but he must have run out of any reasons to doubt that what Kimihiro does is real long ago."

"And? There's a difference between believing someone and believing in them." 

"Mm," Fye leaned back on his chair to look Kurogane in the eye. "Do you believe in me, Kuro? I believe in you, you know."

Not this again. "There's no need."

"Of course there is! Everyone needs someone to believe in them. You know I don't care about the big, scary thing in your past."

"What thing."

"Exactly!" beamed Fye.

It was going to be one of those evenings. They wouldn't be returning to their original topic again tonight, whatever Kurogane said now, but they'd both said all there really was to say on the subject already.

* * *

It was stupid how much Doumeki could get to him, Watanuki reflected, having given up once and for all on ever getting away from the subject.

He was almost starting to wonder whether the others had been right about why he was so useless without Doumeki around—that he'd gone as mad as everyone else here, and the block keeping him from finding friendly guides really was all psychological. He'd grown so accustomed to those missions being something they did together, that he honestly couldn't rule out the side possibility that Doumeki's absence had thrown him so badly that he'd started making phenomenally stupid decisions about which spirits to trust. Maybe it _was_ all just in his head. It wouldn't have been the first time.

It was an explanation that still rang false all the way down to his bones, though—and anyway, when it came down to it, it didn't solve anything. Whatever the mechanism, he was functionally useless without Doumeki around. Presumably had been for months, excepting only that it wasn't until Doumeki had been away for so long that it had struck him just how dependent he was becoming. If he'd needed any further wake up call on the subject, that conversation with Haruka had done nicely. The mood of the encounter had been so profound it had taken him most of the morning after he'd had that dream to remember that Doumeki himself was an impersonal, unsympathetic jerk more often than not.

And once Doumeki had actually returned, there'd been this one traitorous part of his mind which was more relieved to see him than even all those failed missions could properly account for. He was _glad_ to have Doumeki back, beyond all surrounding circumstance, and that irritated him in a whole other list of ways.

It was just so utterly unlike him to become attached to anyone. Even half-convinced, as he always was, that some crazed rival gang was going to charge in here any day now, slaughter everyone here and steal him away yet again. It had been an inevitability at every camp he'd been part of for years—something he'd resigned himself to long ago, but it had never given him nightmares before.

There was precedent for this kind of reaction from him, of course—years back, as best he could reckon the days—but with his heart so broken as it had been then, he'd thought at least he must have learnt his lesson.

Apparently not.

"Need someone to talk to?" offered a friendly voice.

Watanuki jumped, looked back over his shoulder and spotted the corresponding familiar face. "Ah, thankyou, but I'm alright—really."

"Are you?" she peered into his face, hands placed on her hips. "You like it here, don't you?"

"I suppose," Watanuki admitted. "Everyone's been..." The natural end to that sentence was probably 'very kind to me', but 'very weird to me' was more along the lines of what he felt was accurate. "Well, they... treat me like an ordinary person here, mostly. It's good, it's just different from what I'm used to."

"It took you long enough to get here," she declared, playfully reprimanding. "You'd better intend to stay put this time!"

Watanuki tried not to stare at her too obviously as he puzzled over how he was supposed to respond to a statement like that. This was always the problem with trying to have a casual conversation with a ghost—they always knew more than you, or less than you, or they were mentally still stuck back in the same year they'd died and refused to acknowledge anything that had changed since. It led to the making of a lot of impenetrably cryptic statements.

Hokuto was always friendly in a bewildering sort of way when she managed to track him down. This she did intermittently, usually with loud complaints about how much he'd moved around—which Watanuki received regardless of whether he'd actually changed camps in the meantime. Case in point, Kurogane's camp wasn't even very far away from where he'd last seen her. Or thought he'd seen her—somewhere in the midst of the chaos and screaming that had erupted when the gang had brought out the knife on him that day.

He'd done his best not to dwell on what he'd seen, in the ensuing moments. He hadn't wanted to watch, and he'd forgotten as much of it as he could manage. Nonetheless, meeting her again now drew unwilling from his mind's eye an image of a very different grin on her face, glimpsed through a swirling mass; a flash of silver in her hand, the sound of her voice, cheerfully telling a man who probably couldn't even see her just what she would do to anyone who threatened Watanuki like that...

Watanuki really, _really_ didn't need to be recalling something like that now. Hokuto meant well, anyway, though Watanuki could have gladly gone without knowing how deep her protective instincts truly ran.

"I don't get a lot of say in how much I move about a lot of the time," he told her apologetically.

"Well, dig your heels in for once!" Hokuto instructed. "You do want to stay, don't you?"

"I do, just..." he trailed off, wondering just what good digging in one's heels was supposed to do against a rival gang.

"Aha! I knew there was something you weren't talking about!"

"It's nothing, really," Watanuki tried again, hesitated, and let out a sigh. "I think maybe having something good is just making me selfish."

"That's alright! A little selfishness now and then is perfectly healthy."

"Ah...?"

"So Hokuto herself declares!" Hokuto leapt to her feet for emphasis. Then, the effect over with, she glanced to the side, prompting Watanuki to follow her gaze and find Sakura and Syaoran had come up behind him.

"Ah," Sakura's hand flew over her mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were talking to someone."

"Someone?" said Syaoran. "There's someone else here? You mean a ghost?"

"R... right," Watanuki started to say, but Hokuto cut him off.

"Oh, don't mind me, I was just on my way," she said, giving Sakura friendly wink, which conveyed the same effect even if the girl couldn't hear her. She gave all three of them a goodbye wave, and faded away.

"Is she a friend of yours?" Sakura asked, still looking a little flustered for having interrupted.

"Sort of," said Watanuki, then for Syaoran's benefit, he thought to add, "But... er, she's gone now."

Syaoran treated this with the same nonchalance he approached everything in the world of the supernatural. "Good timing then. Shizuka asked us to find you."

It was completely unfair how many different emotions a simple statement like that could evoke in him these days. Stupid Doumeki, he thought, then felt guilty about it. Life was good here—in their own bizarre ways, these were all good people.

He knew all too well how much worse it could be.

* * *

It had been true what Watanuki had told Doumeki those long months before about Kurogane's camp not being the only people he'd ever known and liked, through his last few years of being shuffled from the possession of one gang to the next. Even in the worst gangs, there'd always been the rare individual to show a little human decency and take pity on him—but that had been exactly as far most token compassion went. The simple kindness people showed him remained distant and impersonal; fear of the gang leaders kept them too scared to get any closer. Since the day when the nature of Watanuki's gift first became clear to people, there had only been one person who had ever let herself get close to him, and that had been an affair so heartbreaking it had left Watanuki terrified to ever risk letting anyone make the same mistake again.

Her name was Himawari—'sunflower'—a long forgotten bloom from a world Watanuki had never seen and could barely imagine, and he may very well have fallen in love with her the very first time he ever saw her. Himawari was the gentlest creature he had ever met—a slim girl, pretty and sweet, with soft hair that was never cut or washed and rarely combed, and still curled into elegant tresses that seemed almost to dance as she moved for shear joy of being near her. However, the world in which she was born had only limited uses for a girl who was pretty and sweet, and even Watanuki could not bring himself to feel much more than the dullest surprise when he learned that the men who kept her put her to almost every last one.

Himawari never once complained about her lot. She had the most beautiful smile Watanuki had ever seen—and around the same time he had been learning to lead hungry gangs through the ruins of ancient cities, she must have been learning to keep on smiling like that, no matter what ever happened to her, for she never let that smile slip when it mattered, even for a moment. She really was lucky, she would tell Watanuki. She'd been born without the strength to support herself on her own terms in this broken world, but here, it wasn't so bad. There were gangs out there who would have treated her much, much worse than this—so many places she would never have survived at all. Everyone here had to work hard for their living, but she was never asked to do the running or the shooting or any of the most back-breaking of tasks—delicate and pretty was how they liked her to stay. She was so very lucky that this gang had taken her in and cared for her, and she repeated that mantra until even she believed.

But there was no-one she smiled for wider than she did for Watanuki. She was the one who would come to him after the worst beatings, with soft hands and a damp cloth to hold over the bruises, to offer what comfort she could. Whenever she was able she would slip out to be with him, in whatever dark corner he'd been left, and the two of them would talk—just for the luxury of hearing one another's low voices, long into the night about the most inconsequential things imaginable. Himawari thought it was wonderful what he could do—he had such an incredible talent like nothing she'd ever be capable of—she was so honoured just to have been able to meet him at all. Watanuki never dared to tell her about any of the worst of the ghosts he saw—the tormented ones that would scream and cry, or the malicious ones that would laugh at him as they led him into danger. She carried such a burden already that he could never bear the thought of placing that knowledge on her shoulders—and for her own part, Himawari never spoke in more than the vaguest terms about what was done to her. Inconsequential things were all that passed between them when they talked late into the night, and for a time, those moments were what Watanuki lived for.

It was only a matter of time, however, before it came to the attention of the gang leaders just how close the two were becoming, and they did not approve. It was then they found a new way to punish Watanuki for his mistakes. Pretty girls might have their worth, but they were not nearly so rare or valuable as the likes of the April Fool, so there was no need for them to be nearly so gentle with her as with him. They avoided disfiguring her outright, but there was nothing in her job that required her to be able to stand or lead them around the countryside. There was little need to hold back against Himawari—and the effects on Watanuki spoke for themselves.

And still, even when they were worst to her, Himawari never once blamed him for a single blow she took. Really, she told him, she knew none of the mistakes they punished him for were truly his fault. She was so much less important than he, and if she could spare him some pain by taking these beatings in his stead, she was only too happy to receive them.

Watanuki nearly went mad in those days out of shear desperation.

He hated that gang more than anyone else he had ever encountered, hated himself for bringing such suffering to the person he loved most, hated the world for ever allowing them to meet, sometimes even hated Himawari herself. Yet, those late-night moments when they could still be together remained the moments he lived for—like some terrible drug he could never give up, though it brought him only pain.

In one sense, the gang's strategy worked—Watanuki took them on more treasure hunts than ever before, but the rewards they'd expected did not follow him home. In fact, fewer and fewer of the trips returned them anything of value at all. It wasn't until much later that Watanuki realised just how foolish he'd been then—how he'd allowed himself to listen to so many obviously dangerous spirits, kinds that he'd have wisely closed his ears to any other time. But he'd been too desperate to think straight—willing to take any chance to distract their attention away from Himawari for even a little while, even if doing so could only make everything so much worse.

In the end, there wasn't even anything in particular that triggered it—no recent, terrible failures on Watanuki's part, or no worse than usual. It seemed simply that she took just one beating too many. By the time they left her at last—half-blinded and breathing only shallowly in Watanuki's arms—they both felt what was coming, how little she had left, and not even she could any longer pretend otherwise. Himawari spent her last words apologising for leaving him, for being able to do so little, and begging him so hard not to blame herself when she was gone.

It was worth everything, just to have known him, she said. And then it was over.

Watanuki probably should have felt his heart break when she finally began to grow cold in his arms, but what settled in his chest was numbness, as if in truth it might have broken months before. He no longer had the capacity for any more anguish left to mourn her as she should have been mourned.

He didn't know whether the sight of her ghost would have helped him, or simply broken him all over again, but she never once appeared before him in all the time that passed since that day. Before long, he came to accept that wherever she had gone, it was far beyond anywhere he'd ever see her again.

When, only a few short weeks after her death, another gang caught wind of the name of the April Fool and launched an ambush which left barely a soul of Watanuki's gang alive, that was the one time Watanuki had not mourned for any of the fallen, nor felt the slightest whisper of guilt about the part he had played in their demise.

* * *

Of course, Himawari's ghost would still find other ways to haunt him. It was only natural that Watanuki's heart would go out to any girl in any gang after that who shared her plight—even the shyest ones who resembled her the least, the ones who'd had all the fight beaten out of them and no light left in their eyes. There was no such explanation for his fixation on Doumeki. A person less like Himawari could hardly be envisaged. Watanuki had heard the old saying about opposites attracting, but for one person to be attracted to opposites? How did that make sense? It was harder still to imagine that Doumeki had ever even meant to get close to Watanuki—more like he'd simply appeared one day, well inside Watanuki's personal space, and then had the gall to act surprised when he informed that Watanuki had been there first.

Or maybe it was the actually difference that attracted him. Maybe it made sense that after being forced to watch Himawari so helpless to defend herself that he'd be drawn to someone as stoic and impervious as Doumeki—who could take out three men without missing a shot, drag a wounded companion all the way home and then complain that said companion had had the nerve to take a bullet for him in the process. What did he think he was, bullet-proof? For that matter, why had both Doumeki and Himawari been so convinced that he— _Watanuki_ —needed protecting so much more than either of them ever would?

_Maybe_ , whispered a traitorous voice in his head, _it's because you do_.

Stupid head voices.

Stupid, stupid Doumeki.


	11. Book 2-4

For Doumeki, around the time Watanuki had been learning to lead gangs through old ruins, he'd been learning to do everything else. He must've had parents at some age, but he didn't remember them. The one who'd taught him to read, to bandage a wound, to load a gun and shoot, to take down a deadlands beast with one shot and estimate how long it would be before the poison broke down, to keep his head down in a fight and hide for hours on end if necessary until it was safe to come out—everything he knew—that had been his grandfather, Doumeki Haruka—and him alone.

His childhood was spent constantly on the move—following the herds of game beasts or on treasure hunts of their own variety, seeking supplies Haruka remembered from times gone by. They were hardly much of a match for anyone who might challenge them, one old man and a boy, but Haruka had the knack for keeping them out of trouble. Few people ventured into the old cities anymore, but Haruka could always lead them through safely, finding his way apparently by little more than memory and instinct—and those places became a shelter that few others could penetrate.

Shelter was not something they could afford to stray far away from; those were the days when acid storms were still common, when no-one ever ventured outside without protective coats, and only the bravest and most foolish ever went far with even the distant spectre of rain clouds hanging in the sky. People had been all the more scattered and desperate those few years ago, food all the scarcer while the alien new ecosystem was only beginning to take hold. Doumeki learnt from a young age what madmen were capable of, learned when to be ruthless with them and when to be kind. He learnt what it was like to go hungry, and the futility of complaining about what his grandfather could not provide. But before their condition became too dire, Haruka would always find a way to keep them going, never once showed weakness in all the years Doumeki remembered.

Though he taught Doumeki everything he needed to survive, on the subject of the old days of his own youth, he was strangely silent.

"It would be too easy for us old folk to cling to days that will never return," he told his grandson, "and it would be unfair for us to shackle the next generation to lost dreams." This world, as he saw it, was not an end but the beginning of something strange and new—something that would be Shizuka's rather than his. Even when his grandson was young, Haruka was already an old man, and he felt it more with every year that passed.

Likewise, he always made sure Doumeki understood that their way of life would not last forever. When friendly traders passed by, Haruka was ready with stories and advise in ample supply to recommend himself as company, using such occasions as a rare excuse to introduce his grandson to new people. There were camps, too, that welcomed them as guests—places Doumeki grew used to understanding as the kind of camp that might be his own someday.

"There will come a time when you will need new companions—people who will need your skills as you need them," Haruka impressed on Doumeki on more than one occasion through his growing years. So when the day finally came that Doumeki found himself alone—right on the edge of Kurogane's camp—it was not such a surprise for him as it might have been. Indeed, it had felt inevitable, like something he'd been waiting to happen all his life. Haruka's words long kept him wiling away his nights over the question of where his grandfather was going without him, or how long it might be before he came back.

Haruka had always had a way of knowing these kinds of things. Doumeki had never discovered how, nor thought to wonder until many years later. To him, his grandfather had always been one of the fundamental truths of the universe—dependable as the rising of the sun in the east. He was a part of Doumeki's past in the same way that the old world was part of Haruka's—something it was better to accept he'd never see again than to cling to too fondly, as an example against which the new world could only be found lacking.

The idea that someone he'd known as for as short a time as Watanuki could have access to that part of him—access to more than Doumeki himself did, nowadays—had been more unsettling than he could ever have imagined.

* * *

Doumeki had probably been asleep less than an hour when something he could only identify as a vague feeling of unease dragged him back to consciousness. Watanuki was once again visible only as a silhouette in the gloom, but already up on his feet, arms folded. He didn't seem to have made any obvious motion to wake his roommate, unless the way he was looking at Doumeki counted, which it very well might.

"Somewhere we need to be?" Doumeki guessed. In the darkness, he just barely made out Watanuki's answering nod. He was about to ask whether this was Watanuki's moonlight spirit again, before he remembered that he still wasn't sure just how much of that trip had been real and how much had been dream, and he didn't really want to be sure either.

"Anything I need to know?" he asked instead.

"It's not nearby," Watanuki answered, in a low voice that made all the hairs on the back of Doumeki's neck stand on end. "We'll need supplies—fuel, maybe some food. We need to get moving quickly."

"Is this going to get dangerous?" Doumeki asked. He hadn't seen Watanuki this tense since their argument—maybe not even since the mission when he'd taken that gunshot wound months before.

"No," said Watanuki, "not for us. Aren't you up yet?"

_Not for us_ , now that was intriguingly vague. But then, not all the treasures Watanuki uncovered had been long decades abandoned—some had parted company with their former owners much more recently. Something about the sight of Watanuki in this state recalled to Doumeki his first impressions of the April Fool back on the very first day they met—surrounded by the remains of his former gang. It didn't take an event nearly so unusual as what had occurred there to wipe a gang out completely and leave a derelict campsite behind—and a journey that would require them to take extra fuel along could take them well outside the safety zone of the Diet Building's territory. If some such place were their destination, that would explain Watanuki's behaviour all too neatly.

"If we're going to be away that long, we need to wake up Kurogane and make sure he understands," said Doumeki.

Implicit in that should have been the hint that if Watanuki had any more information to share about just what Doumeki was supposed to tell their leader, now was the time, but Watanuki just said, "Fine," and fell into tense silence again. It occurred to Doumeki that leaving him here with only whatever was going through his head for company—even just for the short time it would take to wake Kurogane and come back—would be too long.

"Start getting the bike ready," he said aloud. "I won't be long."

As they were pulling out of the camp barely twenty minutes later a light went on in the lab building behind them, but neither looked back to see.

* * *

Like most of the longer journeys Watanuki had taken him on, there was relatively little steering to be done once they'd been pointed in the right direction. The moon had been full a few nights previously and was bright enough for Doumeki to switch the headlight down to its dimmest setting, saving power. For a long time there was nothing but the task of holding on to require much concentration or provide distraction—nothing but the motion of the bike and the steady hum of its engines to mark the passing time. Doumeki would not have been surprised to feel Watanuki start to nod off behind him before the first hour was up, but nothing of the kind occurred. His passenger had barely relaxed any further after the fifth hour than the first.

A few hours before dawn, they stopped to eat and get some rest while there was still some darkness. Doumeki wedged himself into a relatively comfortable hollow and quickly drifted off, but he slept only fitfully, and hadn't added even another full hour to his nightly total before he found himself awake again. The first suggestion of sunrise was visible on the horizon, but that wasn't what had woken him. Watanuki was sitting in a crouch by his side, staring off into the distance. Doumeki realised abruptly that he hadn't even been trying to sleep.

"Shouldn't you rest?" he asked aloud.

Watanuki didn't even jump. "It doesn't matter what I _should_ , I'm not going to. _You're_ the one driving, I'm just here to play compass. It's not your fault if I'm not sleeping, so just go back to sleep, would you?"

Doumeki stared at him for a moment, then got to his feet. "The sooner we get this over with, the better, right?"

"You don't..." Watanuki started.

"I can go a day or two without sleep. I've done it before," Doumeki told him. "No sense wasting time."

For once, Watanuki didn't argue.

By midday, they were well beyond the borders of the land either the Tower or the Diet Building had any claim to. It had been difficult for Doumeki to get more than the most general sense of direction the night before, and by morning they were well into unfamiliar territory. However, as the day wore on, something twinged in Doumeki's memory—something about the angle of the sun and shadow of the hills, and it continued to nag at him until he found the memory to go with it—a journey he'd made only once before, several years ago.

"Are we changing course any time soon?" he asked Watanuki, before they started the bike again after a very brief midday break.

"No, why?" Watanuki replied, looking distracted.

"There's a Complex out this way," Doumeki reported. "If we keep to the same direction." Specifically, it was that same Complex which had delayed trading with their distant neighbour long enough to give the outsiders the opportunity to send out the trading parties earlier that year. It was a strange impression to have at the forefront of his mind if they were going to be seeing it again now, for only the second time in Doumeki's life.

Watanuki didn't reply. Whether he'd known, didn't want to know or simply didn't care what lay ahead, Doumeki couldn't guess from his expression, but his continued sullen mood alone was becoming all the more unsettling.

Doumeki kicked the bike into a higher gear on the next leg of the journey—fuel waste be damned, they had enough to spare.

* * *

The Complex—according to Doumeki's memory—was located in a natural valley, hidden from all sides until you cleared the peak of the nearest hill. Long before they reached that point, its position was marked from afar by a thin pillar of smoke, climbing upwards into the heavens.

By the time the Complex itself came into view, Doumeki was more or less prepared for what they were going to see.

This Complex had never been so large or so grand as the one Doumeki and the other envoys had travelled so far to reach. There had only ever been one great dome and two smaller under which (if Fye was to be believed) the five hundred and twenty four people had lived out their lives—and now, that great dome stood shattered over nearly half its area, the great chunks of reinforced glass collapsed on to the buildings it had once protected far below. Fires still burned in bright orange patches in several places within, though they had the look of the last embers of greater fires, surviving on what little fuel remained. But for the fires, nothing within moved nor made any sound.

This was no mere dead campsite Watanuki had lead him to—no matter the damage, what lay at their feet represented a greater treasure trove of valuables than anything he had ever imagined. And yet, the thought of setting foot within turned Doumeki's stomach. Plundering a ruined Complex—that would be like stealing from a dying god. What did it matter if it was a god Doumeki had never worshipped? Until the supplies within were the last hope of the dying, the mere thought was no less taboo than it had ever been.

He looked at Watanuki wordlessly, to find his guide's face had gone paler than he'd ever seen before—but there was a look in that face of determination so strong it left no doubt that there was a reason why they'd been led here. Silently, Doumeki kicked the bike into gear and started them down the slope.

Near the bottom, Watanuki tapped him on the shoulder and pointed, and Doumeki adjusted their course, veering to meet the foot of the wall where it curved away from them to the east. Debris had landed outside in a few places, but most had fallen inwards rather than out, and from the edge, the solid stone walls and misted glass of the dome hid much of what may have transpired within. But as they rounded on the far side of the structure, Doumeki saw that one of the smaller domes had fared much worse—here, the collapse had spread downwards, shattering stone to leave a wide gap in the wall where the Complex had fallen in on itself. Within, something was moving, slowly placing one bare foot in front of the other. As they approached, the movement resolved into the form of a young girl in a simple brown dress, her long hair hanging limply around her face and in her eyes. Moving as if in a trance, she seemed almost to have been called out here by means as mysterious as that which guided Watanuki. Her pale, blue eyes, turning towards the sound of the bike, might barely have seen them at all. And then she tilted sideways and collapsed where she stood.

Watanuki was off the bike and running towards her almost before she hit the ground.


	12. Book 2-5

Kurogane and the others were waiting for them when Doumeki got back to camp, the bike and Watanuki waiting a short walk away to allow Doumeki the chance to give his campmates some warning about what they'd brought home. Not since he'd returned from their trading mission had Doumeki seen such a sense of gloom hanging over the place.

"Back from the Complex?" asked Kurogane.

"You've heard?" asked Doumeki. It hadn't occurred to him the news might find a way beat them home.

"Chi got a message right after you left," Kurogane reported. "There was one short distress signal, then silence. The other Complexes have done nothing but argue about it on the channel ever since. They've no idea what happened yet."

"It could just be a bad communications failure, couldn't it?" said Sakura, terribly worried.

"But it wasn't, was it?" said Kurogane, looking at Doumeki.

"No," said Doumeki. "When we got there, the whole structure had caved in. There were fires still burning. We didn't see much else."

Sakura's hands flew over her mouth, both eyes wide, even as Syaoran hurried to her side. There was a weak, sobbing laugh sound from Fye, sitting curled up against the wall of a nearby building. Chi was with him, a rare sight to see outside the lab building, her head resting on his shoulder and both her arms gently wrapped around his neck, and Fye was hanging onto her loosely with one hand.

"Any clues about what happened there?" asked Kurogane.

"Nothing useful," Doumeki replied.

Kurogane's eyes drifted back to the bike, where Watanuki was still waiting. "So what was it you went so far to bring back?"

* * *

The young girl had woken up part way through the long return journey, but neither of them noticed right away. It wasn't until Watanuki looked down to where she'd been awkwardly wedged between them on the bike and found her staring blankly out into the deadlands that he realised she must have woken silently some time ago.

"We're... outside," she said softly.

"Ah," said Watanuki, awkwardly, "it's alright though—you don't need to be scared."

The girl looked like she couldn't, for the moment, remember what it was she was supposed to be scared of.

Doumeki stopped the bike so he could turn around properly. Their young charge looked at Watanuki, then back the way they came, her movements slow and heavy. "The Complex... was...?"

"You remember what happened?" said Doumeki.

The girl lowered her eyes.

"When we got there, it was already too late. There wasn't much left," said Watanuki. "I'm sorry."

The girl looked up at him again. "There was no-one else...?"

"You were the only one we found," Doumeki told her.

"You are...?" the girl asked.

"I'm Watanuki Kimihiro," said Watanuki. "The grumpy one at the front is Doumeki Shizuka. And you're?"

"Kohane," was the answer.

"It's our pleasure to meet you, Kohane," said Watanuki, then added, "even if the circumstances are a bit awkward."

Kohane nodded slightly.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" Watanuki asked. "We don't have much, but..."

Kohane shook her head.

"We should get moving," said Doumeki, "There's still a long way left to go."

* * *

Kohane was well enough to stand when they got her off the bike at last back home, though she kept one hand gripped tightly Watanuki's sleeve, whether more for physical support or reassurance was something of a moot point. She looked at the campsite and its gathered members curiously, though with no outward surprise.

"She's from a Complex?" said Syaoran, perhaps unnecessarily.

"Any other survivors?" asked Kurogane.

"None we saw," said Doumeki, and looked to Watanuki.

"I don't know, do I?" said Watanuki miserably. "What could we have done if there were?"

"Other Complexes won't have the room to take them in," said Kurogane, as if thinking aloud, "and not many would be prepared to survive out here."

"There's nothing we can do, either way," said Doumeki.

Kurogane studied the girl hanging on Watanuki's arm, obviously wondering just what they were supposed to do with her. She was certainly unlike any treasure Watanuki had ever brought them before. "We'll have to find room for one more."

"She's staying? Is that a good idea?" Syaoran blurted out. "We're not that big a camp, wouldn't the Diet Building or the Tower be..."

"They don't take in outsiders. Let alone outsiders from a Complex," Kurogane reminded him. "And leaving children out to fend for themselves in the deadlands isn't our style. As long as she's prepared to learn enough to pull her weight."

The last was directed right at Kohane herself. "Um," she said uncertainly, "am I staying here?"

"If you _want_ to stay," said Watanuki quickly. "It may not look like much, but it's really not so bad here. There isn't much choice," he admitted awkwardly, "but I've never been anywhere better, and..."

"It's alright," said Kohane. "I'll stay. I'd like to."

"Oh look at this, where are our manners?" said Fye, coming abruptly out of his daze. "She hasn't even been properly introduced to anyone here yet." The smile he turned to Kohane was weaker than usual, but he looked glad for the distraction.

"She already knows me," said Doumeki. "I'm going to bed."

* * *

Watanuki himself was just as overdue for some sleep, and by now running on nerves strung thin as piano wire. The whole trip had taken a day and a half, and it had been a hell of an ordeal for him—and now, just to cap it all off, Kurogane wanted a word with him.

Watanuki couldn't entirely blame him. If their positions had been reversed, he would have wanted a word with himself too. There was nothing to be done but get it over with.

Leaving Kohane with Sakura and Fye, he followed Kurogane inside. The way her eyes had trailed after him as he left made him feel guilty about leaving her alone—even for a short while in what he knew was good company.

Kurogane took just long enough to start talking to make Watanuki uncomfortable.

"Not your usual loot," he began. At least he didn't sound like he was blaming Watanuki for anything—or at least, not yet.

"It wasn't exactly a usual situation," said Watanuki, helplessly. "How often does something like that happen—to a whole Complex...!"

"Not in living memory," Kurogane agreed. "But it was a long way for your spirits to take you for one little girl."

"What were we supposed to do?" Watanuki protested. "Leave her there?"

"No-one would ask you to do that," said Kurogane, showing that unnatural level of insight which Watanuki found faintly terrifying, "but do you think she's the only lost child who's ever passed within a few days travel of this camp? The only once since you joined us?"

"I know, I know," said Watanuki, wringing his hands. "We can't save everyone like her—and she probably doesn't deserve to live any more or less than anyone else, only..."

"Only she may be the only survivor of something that wiped out everyone else in a whole Complex," said Kurogane. "Do you really have no idea what happened—why you'd be led so far for such a reason?"

Watanuki hung his head. What on earth could he possibly say?

When his silence had extended long enough to make it clear no answer was forthcoming, he heard a sharp exhalation of breath from Kurogane—some abbreviated cousin of a sigh, presumably—and the sound of the man getting to his feet.

"When you first came here, we had the same concerns. I told Doumeki you'd be his responsibility until we knew more about you. I'm going to give you the same instruction with regards to the girl. Are you willing?"

In the circumstances, this seemed the most reasonable request that could have been made of him. Watanuki nodded. "I'm willing."

Satisfied, Kurogane said, "Then we'll leave the rest until you and she have gotten some rest." Watanuki had just turned gratefully toward the door, when Kurogane added, "You can pass on a message for me too."

* * *

Watanuki went straight back to check on Kohane after that, but when he got to the spare building where Sakura and Fye had been getting her settled in he found they'd suggested she rest, and as soon as she'd been introduced to a (relatively) proper bed, she'd fallen into a deep sleep. There was nothing remaining to do but inform Fye that Kurogane seemed to want to see him for some reason, and to get some rest of his own.

Watanuki had thought he'd be too strung out to sleep—until he woke early the next morning feeling groggy as all hell, with only the vaguest memory of letting his head fall on to the pillow left from the night before. Doumeki was up and gone already, which was unusual since that ordinarily would have woken him too. He must have really needed all that sleep. Memories of the previous day's events were still far too fresh in his mind to let him to feel like he'd had any proper rest at all.

He'd been up only a minute when he heard a soft voice calling, "Kimihiro?" from the doorway. Kohane's voice, he realised after only a moment of unfamiliarity.

"Ah... I'll be out in just a moment," he called back, stepping up his pace a notch. Some job he was doing taking responsibility for her if he overslept on his first day.

Kohane was waiting for him on the doorstep when Watanuki made good on his word. "Good Morning. Sorry to keep you waiting."

Kohane shook her head. "You were so tired last night no-one wanted to wake you, and I haven't been up very long." She hesitated for a moment. "Is it alright—to call you like that?"

"By first name, you mean?" asked Watanuki. "It's alright—most of the others do, and none of them ever bothered to ask permission." Fye, of course, was on a first-name basis with everyone, and Sakura and sometimes Syaoran tended to follow his lead. "You slept alright then?" he added, feeling nervous for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on. "It can be awkward, settling into new places."

"Not badly."

"Well then, feel up to some breakfast? We don't have much right now—just meat, and it's not very fresh because we always have to wait until the poison breaks down, but it's not too bad once it's cooked properly. It's not going to be like what you're used to from the Complex, though I..."

"It's alright," Kohane interrupted. "I've eaten food like that before. I was born outside."

"You... really?" Watanuki stuttered. "But... then how did you ever...?"

"My mother got us admitted," Kohane explained, "She told people from that Complex about what I could do."

"Oh," said Watanuki, a new wave of the disorientation washing over him. Of course Kohane would have had some kind of family—but if she had, and that family had been left in the Complex when... it didn't bear thinking about. He'd never heard of any outsider successfully broaching access to a Complex before. There were a hundred different things he wanted to ask, but this was territory he didn't dare venture into when the memories would still be so fresh for her.

"You felt it too, didn't you?" asked Kohane. "When we met. I'd never met anyone else like that until then."

"It might've been even before that," Watanuki admitted. "On the way there, there was this feeling—I'd never felt that kind of summons or connection either—not even when I did meet another person like... you and I. But then, I've never seen anything like what happened there either."

Kohane turned to look into the distance, out beyond the camp border, as though the remains of the Complex might even have been visible somewhere just over the horizon. "It wasn't a dream, was it? Those years in that place, the dome broken, everything gone silent again from outside... I was born out here in a camp like this one, but still..."

"It was real," said Watanuki sadly. "We saw when we went there—it was no mistake."

"Then... all those people...?"

Something needed to be said; he wanted so badly to reassure her, but what good could it do to lie? "Well, it wasn't entirely gone, just—damaged badly. Maybe some part of it's repairable. Or maybe some other people got out alive and... I don't really know. Everything that happens in those places is so strange to everyone else out here."

"Maybe," agreed Kohane. "I don't know either."

It was likely, Watanuki thought, they were both better off not knowing, not even asking any more.

* * *

Showing Kohane around the camp was no bigger a job than it had been the day Watanuki had first had that privilege, but Fye never missed the rare chance to show off his solar panels to a fresh audience. The new day found him still eager for any distraction, to relish the opportunity to show off all the intricacies of the system he'd so carefully assembled, more so even than usual. In fact, so involved was he that he went most of his explanation without ever noticing his listener was distracted for a whole other reason.

"...they're a never-ending blight on my time for maintenance," he was saying, patting a nearby panel with the fond expression of a long-suffering parent, "but that's just the price we pay for trying to keep an array this size functioning in this day and age. We can't go taking spare parts for granted."

"It's different from in the Complex," Kohane offered, looking at Fye with an expression he took a few seconds too long to interpret correctly.

"Excuse me, but," she went on, "you said you were called Fye? Fye Flowright?"

"Well yes, I.... oh," said Fye, as realisation dawned on him all at once. He sat down heavily, landing on his own toolbox with a clatter. "Ah. Of course. With where you're from, I should have realised I'd be recognised, shouldn't I? But it was so long ago now, well..."

"People still talk about what happened to you. Or, they did when I was there," said Kohane, stuck in the awkward habits associated with things made recently past tense.

"They would, wouldn't they?" said Fye, laughing humourlessly to himself as he stared up at the sky. "It's not every day someone would come along to leave them a story like mine. Why, I'd wager some version of it must have reached every Complex in range—it'll pass into legend well beyond my own lifetime! Even the history books might record it some day!"

"But... out here, it's something very personal to you?" said Kohane. "I'm sorry if I've brought bad memories here—if it's something I shouldn't know."

Fye patted her on the head affectionately. "It's not your fault what you did or didn't know. Nothing to apologise for. I'd appreciate it if you could keep that story to yourself though."

"The others... don't know about it?"

"We have a rule here," Fye explained, coming back to himself a little, "that says the past doesn't matter. It's a sad sort of world we're living in; it forces the best of us to go to measures no-one should ever have to contemplate. The least we can offer people here is some kind of fresh start. It might seem an awkward kind of rule, but we do our best by it."

Kohane looked at him thoughtfully. "That rule would apply to me too?"

"It's for everyone," said Fye, raising an eyebrow, "but a girl your age couldn't have much she'd need to leave behind, surely?"

"I don't know," said Kohane softly, "but it still feels like if I hadn't ever gone to that Complex... if my mother hadn't taken me there, everything that happened after..."

After Kohane's silence had extended on for a minute, Fye ended it. "Ah. That kind of secret."

"Mm," said Kohane uncomfortably.

"Let me guess some more of it," Fye offered. "Something big and terrible happened—something you never meant, but that wouldn't ever have happened without you. And now I suppose it's all very well for someone else to tell you not to blame yourself for what you didn't cause, but it still feels like there must have been something more you should have done."

Kohane looked up at him in surprise. "How did...?"

"Oh, my dear, it's such a common tale," Fye told her. "And rule or no rule, it sounds like you have the kind of story you're going to want to share with someone before it all gets too much for you—once you feel up to telling it."

Kohane nodded solemnly, and offered no argument against his advice.

* * *

Sakura was in the middle of carrying a slightly too large load of tools back to the lab building when a barely familiar voice behind her said, "Um..." at just the wrong moment.

When the cacophony of a lot of tools hitting the ground all on top of each other finally faded, Kohane gingerly stepped the rest of the way around the corner and said, "Sorry, I didn't meant to startle you."

Sakura shook her head vigorously from side to side. "No, it's alright! It's just that I wasn't expecting anyone then, because..."

"...they're all away from the camp somewhere or very busy," Kohane finished for her. "The others don't have anything for me to do now. They suggested I should see whether you needed any help with anything."

Sakura tried to think quickly, but all that really resulted in was every thought in her head colliding at once or running way from her. All she had to do just now was put these tools away—and while it would be very good to show Kohane where they all went if she might be helping out with the panels in the future, that would mean taking her into the lab, and she wasn't supposed to see Chi until she'd been here a lot longer than a mere two days.

She was still wildly trying to come up with anything for Kohane to do (completely missing the point that a simple, 'no, nothing I can think of just at the moment' would have been a perfectly valid answer) when she realised Kohane wasn't looking at her anymore. She'd been distracted by the sight of the sunlight-woman who was standing a few paces away from where they stood.

"Ah, she's here early today," she said out loud, surprised. Kohane turned back to her questioningly. "She often comes here to watch the sunset," Sakura went on reassuringly. "There's nothing to worry about; she doesn't bother anyone and she'll go again when the sun sets, and..." she paused suddenly and threw both hands over her mouth as realisation attacked her out of nowhere. "You... you can see her too? _Really?_ "

Kohane nodded. "Then you also see ghosts, like me and Kimihiro?"

"You know that he..." Sakura started, then stopped herself again. "Oh, of course—but everyone knows he does. All the stories about the April Fool."

"We didn't have those stories in the Complex," said Kohane. "He told me about some of them yesterday—but I think I knew something about Kimihiro even before that, when he came to find me..." There was a distant look in her face as she said this, but she shook it off again quickly. "He said something before about meeting someone else who was like him. I didn't realise you were the one he meant."

"I'm not quite like him though," Sakura admitted. "He can hear what the ghosts are telling him, but I can only see them. Can you...?"

"I'm the same," Kohane told her. "They can't talk to me either."

"You grew up in a Complex too, didn't you?" Sakura asked suddenly. "Did you ever see... ah, but it was a different Complex to ours. Things were probably different there." She trailed off, leaving her listener blinking at her and trying to catch what she could possibly have meant.

"There were ghosts at my Complex," Kohane suggested. "Mostly the same kinds you'd see out here. Often, the scientists there took me places they thought ghosts would be and asked me to describe what I saw. They would try to use devices they'd made to tell them where the ghosts were. A lot of times they'd examine my eyes or use scans that would show them in inside of my head. Was... any of that sort of thing what you meant?"

"Nothing like that at all!" Sakura gasped. "When I was there, I was terrified to ever let our caretakers know what I could see. All I knew was that no-one else saw them but me, and so I was so sure seeing them must be something terribly wrong."

"You may have been right not to tell them," said Kohane. "You would have been a lot younger than me when you left?"

Sakura nodded sadly. "Syaoran and I both were. It was years ago."

"About Syaoran," Kohane began. "I meant to ask Kimihiro, but I didn't have the chance yet..."

"You mean the ghosts around him, don't you?" said Sakura. She didn't really see Kohane's answering nod, but she didn't need to. "He can't see or feel them, but they've been with him ever since that day we left. Sometimes I think they're fading as time goes by, but others... I don't think they'll ever leave."

"Some ghosts never stop haunting the same place," Kohane agreed. "I never knew whether it was something _wrong_ , what we can do. It always seemed that if it drew such bad attention and if there was nothing I could do to help them, there wasn't any good that could come of seeing the dead. But it's different for Kimihiro. If the dead hadn't guided him there, no-one would have come to get me. It seemed to mean so much to him to have been able to help."

Sakura nodded vigorously. "It's like that for him. With the ghosts to help him, he's been able to find so many useful things for us ever since he came here."

"I wonder if we could ever find a way to make what we can do as helpful as that," said Kohane softly.

"I've never thought of anything," Sakura replied. "I just try to help out any other way I can. Oh, and I'm sure we'll find ways you can too!"

"Is... there anything I can help you out with, then?" asked Kohane.

"All I've got to do now is put these tools away," said Sakura, thinking rapidly. "But I don't have to do all of that now. So maybe you could help me carry them all back to the lab, and I could start to show you how to clean the panels and things while it's still light!"

* * *

Scavenging missions like this one usually meant Watanuki took on an uncharacteristic level of focus, but this time they were barely an hour out before he started to fidget uncontrollably. Doumeki could tell immediately it was going to be a long trip.

"She's still going to be there when we get back," he muttered over his shoulder.

Watanuki stiffened indignantly behind him, which didn't actually make as much difference to his posture as it might have. "I'm supposed to be responsible for her, but instead, she's only been around two days when I'm off for hours in the middle of nowhere. How is that supposed to count?"

"Leading these trips is responsibility of yours too," Doumeki reminded him. "I know, I know, but it's not the same thing, is it? Since when do I wind up on trips like this twice inside of a week anyway?"

Doumeki thought for a moment. "There was that time the month before last..."

"But that was an exception too! 'Almost never' is close enough to never for this to be ridiculous."

"You're the expert," Doumeki shrugged. "You tell me."

"That was _meant_ to be treated as a hypothetical question, you know," Watanuki grumbled.

"Why do you bother asking at all if you don't want an answer?"

"I'm sure I have no idea why I bother talking to you at all some days," Watanuki complained bitterly.

'Talking at' would be the more accurate description, Doumeki thought, but he kept it to himself.

"The others can take perfectly good care of her," he said aloud, trying for reason for once. "Monopolising her attention isn't going to help her settle in. Everyone knows how important these trips are. She isn't going to hold it against you if you're not there full time."

"It doesn't stop me feeling like I've failed somewhere though—like I'm supposed to be somewhere else."

"You're supposed to be here. You're supposed to be giving me directions, too."

"Lots and lots of _straight ahead_ ," said Watanuki, still sounding petulant.

He was quiet after that, but he didn't stop fidgeting for the rest of the trip.


	13. Book 2-6

Sakura is the first thing Syaoran remembers, though their meeting is lost to him along with everything else from his earliest years. All he has left now is the emotion—the connection and the burning need to protect, and he's clung to that ever since, though he's long forgotten what it means.

By contrast, Sakura has never been allowed to forget anything—not even from those earliest moments when the world was still huge and blurry and strange. Still, there's little in her memory to differentiate those early days, jumbled together in a haze of familiar routine. The first thing she can pinpoint—the first that mattered in any concrete way—was Syaoran, her Syaoran. It wasn't a momentous meeting—simply two lines of tiny children, one of boys and one of girls, all so young that even the best-made among them were still unsteady on their feet—passing each other in the hallway. That was not the first time that her group had seen any of the boys, but to that age they'd had precious little opportunity to interact, and on that day the two lines were, each to the other, one of the most fascinating mysteries their limited world had ever produced.

Even back then, all the little girls were a little different—so were the boys—so as they passed, there were just a few of the ones whose steps were the firmest, the brightest and most alert among them, who turned their heads to watch the other procession go by. When Sakura turned, a boy at the end on the other side did likewise, and by chance, their eyes met and caught. Both continued to crane their necks to watch each other, silent and curious, until one group rounded a corner and passed out of sight.

Sakura remembers wondering—not wondering anything specific, just wondering—about that boy for a long while after that.

Their world was sharply limited in those days—no more than a series of pale, white rooms for sleeping, eating, taking class, and for play—but they were always well cared for by the adults charged with looking after them. If the children were little more than pets to their caretakers, they were beloved pets, to be handled gently when they needed to be examined, spoken to with soft, encouraging words, and smiled at, even if they hadn't mastered the skill of smiling back. And when members among their number collapsed suddenly and did not get up again, or would hold their heads and begin crying louder and louder, never stopping until they were carried away, their caretakers would mourn for them—sometimes even weep for them in sight of the other silent girls and boys. Then, the next day, the fallen girls would appear in the classroom again, right on time—half-transparent to Sakura's eyes, standing listlessly in corners that should never have been big enough to hold as many faces as she sometimes saw, as if none knew anywhere else to go.

There were boys like that too, though Sakura saw less of them. When she passed by the lines of boys in the corridors, she'd often see one or two of the empty boys following along at the end, or between the others—even walking right through their solid counterparts at times. She always turned to watch those lines, in case she might see the one she'd already come to think of as _her_ boy with them, but by the time she drew level with the transparent ones at the end she would look away, not wishing to see how long their unblinking eyes might have followed her. No-one else paid them any attention, so she tried to follow that example. Clearly the empty ones were something not meant to be seen.

She did not wonder about them either, not that she remembered. She would not have known how to put words to the questions that jumbled unanswered inside her head—the empty ones were simply one of the facts of her small world. It was not until she was older that she began to understand that the reason no-one else paid them any attention was that no-one else saw them but her. And from the way their pale eyes turned back on her when she watched them, Sakura came to feel that maybe _they_ , too, saw no-one else among the living but herself.

Time passes slowly for the very young. A year is one half of forever when you're only two years old. Although Sakura's memory may have been perfect, she could not have said how long it was that they lived in those rooms—how many classes she sat in or how many story books they were read, though it must all be there somewhere in her memory still, if she only dared to recall it. She had no baseline against which she would have been able to judge whether she and her peers learnt faster than other children did, or how fast they grew. Her world was too limited to grant her the fabric from which to construct any notion of what lay beyond it, or beyond the worlds of the stories they were told, the books they read and the videos they were shown in those lessons. Even as the numbers of the living dwindled and the empty ones grew, they were all she knew.

As they grew, their routine changed. Play sessions were held in larger groups, and they were allowed to mix with some of the boys of the same physical age. Not all the children seemed to understand how to play. Some might sit in the middle of a ring of toys and simply stare at them, the way they stared at everything when there was no-one to prompt them for some specific sort of behaviour. However, it did not take long for Sakura and Syaoran to learn to find each other during those times, and she and he were always among the brighter ones. Syaoran himself was not so good at coming up with games, but he followed willingly through what she demonstrated, and in a room of tiny faces that had scarcely a difference between them, he soon learned to look at her as if she was the only one that mattered—and by then, no-one mattered to her more than him.

They rarely spoke in those earliest days. It was the same for all the children when left to their own devices—speech was something the adults had taught them; something they used when spoken to, to answer their questions, recite lines, facts or poetry as instructed. The words she knew did not feel like they were hers—not nearly as much as Syaoran was—and between just the two of them back then, words weren't needed.

(Once, when one of those empty girls had been watching her from only a few paces away all session, Sakura held out one of her toys and tried to invite her to play, but the girl simply stared at it every bit as blandly as the worst of her living peers. Before long, Sakura gave up again, lay the toy back down and tried not to feel the empty eyes on the back of her neck until the session was over for that day.)

Their lessons too began to change as they grew older. The girls' were becoming much harder. It was no longer all rote learning and simple problems, now they were set tasks that demanded creativity, and with this new challenge, many of the quieter ones began to fall further behind. Meanwhile, the boys began to learn martial arts. Sakura only saw it in bits, and she did not quite see the point to those exercises. There was fighting in the stories they were told sometimes, but it had seemed every bit as unreal to her as every other fact from beyond her experience. Until now, it had been rare that any of them had been encouraged to be competitive.

Any of the boys could learn to repeat the moves by rote, but to win a match required a measure of innovation, and like the girls, there many of them floundered. Her Syaoran had never been much gifted with imagination, but at this task, it seemed that his body learned faster than his mind. He could react to dodge almost before a blow had been aimed, found ways to weave and counter that he had never been taught. His instructors were all very pleased with him, and although she still did not quite understand, Sakura found herself strangely proud. She begun to wish she had something she could excel at as well as he.

It was Syaoran that Sakura told about the empty children when at last she could bear to keep the secret no longer. It was difficult to find a way to explain it to him so that it would make sense; her education hadn't given her the words she needed. Syaoran listened, and looked obediently into the corners she pointed out that should have been filled with half-visible bodies, but all he could do was confirm for her that he saw nothing there. Still, he was Syaoran—it never occurred to him to disbelieve her, and in his own peculiar way, he understood.

It was obvious to him how much the empty children bothered her, and for a while after he made it his mission to understand what she meant as well as he was able. He would have her point out to him where they were in the room and would stare at those places for ages as if he could induce himself to see them by shear force of will. The spirits remained just as invisible to him as ever, but when some of them began to look back at him, Sakura began to worry. Perhaps Syaoran didn't need to truly see them to catch their attention—perhaps simply the way he stared at the places they stood was enough to convince them that he knew what he should not. Once she saw three of the empty boys all turn to watch him walk across the room at once, their eyes never leaving him, though he himself never glanced their way. The sight scared Sakura so badly that she didn't dare answer Syaoran's requests that she point them out to him again. Her every sense had always told her there was something horribly, horribly wrong with the empty ones, and to lead them to take an interest in someone so dear to her could only be a very bad thing.

* * *

Sakura didn't see the accident when it occurred, nor was she or any of the others in her class ever told what had happened—but they all heard the crash (so loud that even the dullest of her classmates looked up in surprise) and when the alarms began it sent all their caretakers into a state of confusion. The panic did not last long, but for sixteen days after that, a section of one of the corridors was closed off and locked, and all the classes were forced to take longer routes around it.

The differences to that stretch of corridor when it opened again later were subtle. A section of the pipe-work running along the wall was shiny and new in contrast to the pipes around it, and there were raised welding lines still visible at the joins. To Sakura alone, the differences were far more profound. In the centre of that corridor there now stood three of the empty girls, like none Sakura had ever seen before. Whereas the other empty ones were indistinguishable from their solid companions, these three had trails of blood dripping down their arms and staining their pretty dresses. One had part of her head caved in, a second had a hole through her chest and an arm missing, and the third had vicious burns all over one side of her body.

Up to that moment, that the empty children might be spirits of the dead had barely begun to impress itself upon Sakura. She and the others had been taught about the concept of death in her classes. Occasionally the children had been read ghost stories, though she had rarely much enjoyed them. The connections between the familiar and the world revealed in her lessons were not as obvious to her young mind as perhaps they might have been, but she would have made them on her own given a little more time. Faced with a sight such as this, there was no longer any mystery. What had happened in this corridor was suddenly, horribly clear to her—what happened to all the girls and boys who were taken away and did not return. The three ghost girls before her were the answer to every question she'd never dared to ask.

And they would not move out of her way.

Sakura knew she could have walked right through them. She'd been forced to do so countless times before when there was no way around, eyes squeezed shut until she was past. But faced with such a grisly sight, she couldn't bear to take another step. All she could do was stare in horror and fall to her knees on the floor, no will left in her to fight the tears collecting in her eyes. The line behind her was forced to stop and wait in confusion, unable to see what the problem might be.

There Sakura stayed until she felt gentle arms lifting her up, finally bringing her out of the daze she'd sunk into long enough to see the sad faces of two of their caretakers leaning over her—those same sad expression they always wore when one of their girls or boys collapsed out of the blue. While Sakura would have been certain a moment before that nothing could scare her more than the dead children, now she knew that to be wrong. She knew what happened now—she was going to be taken away like all the children who fell one day and did not get up again—she'd become one of the empty children herself, the ones who never changed or smiled, and Syaoran would never be able to see her again—would never even know when she was there.

No longer paralysed, Sakura panicked, struggled and screamed and cried out Syaoran's name, but to no avail. The people who held her were many times her height and strength, and her behaviour could only make her seem madder, beyond help. In glimpses, Sakura thought she saw the empty ones everywhere around her now—more than there'd ever been before, all focused on her with more intensity than she could endure—did they know? Did they realise she was about to become one of them? Was that why they'd come?

Then, in the midst of it all, she heard Syaoran's voice calling back to her in reply.

In her surprise, Sakura stopped struggling, twisting only to let her turn her head towards the sound—and there was Syaoran, being held back just like her in his mad efforts to get to her. There was barely a moment's relief in seeing him. Far from being able to help, she realised she'd only gotten him in trouble too. It seemed certain now they'd _both_ be taken away, and the thought that Syaoran would at least be able to see her if he became just as empty as she was no comfort.

But Syaoran wasn't quite in the same predicament as her. He knew how to fight, how to twist out of a difficult grab—and as none of the men and women trying to restrain him had ever taken direct part in any of the boys sparring matches, none realised until it was too late how well he'd learned. He should have been far too small and light to have any hope against them, but he fought as though it was the only thing he'd ever learned to do. Though it seemed every moment of freedom he achieved should be his last, he kept struggling. Even the captors who held Sakura began to abandon her to help with this far more difficult charge. All around, the ghosts began to turn his way once more. Even as Sakura's terror had united them with purpose, Syaoran could show them what needed to be done.

As one, the boy-ghosts moved to fight by his side. Wherever Syaoran threw a kick or a punch, a dozen other arms or legs struck beside him. More and more they came to his aid, until to Sakura he was barely visible inside a cloud of half-seen bodies. It took barely a few quick blows now for Syaoran to disable anyone who came at him—the confusion among their caretakers was growing into panic as they realised there was nothing that could stop him anymore. By the time he reached her, even Sakura was scared of what he might do, but from the storm cloud of wailing ghosts he emerged, holding out a hand to her urgently. Sakura took it and found her feet somehow to follow him. She didn't know what else to do.

Even to Sakura, what happened after that—how they escaped the Complex—always remained hazy. She was half-dragged and half-carried, the ghost-cloud that surrounded them grown so great that nothing could stand long in their way—even solid walls were mown down by the rage of the dead. Sakura saw the greater Complex outside those few familiar rooms only in unmemorable snatches as they rushed past, people running left and right to get out of the way.

When they reached the outside at last, Sakura looked up for the first time at a pale sky that went on forever overhead, and felt certain they would both be swallowed up by it if they took another step. The need to run had not left Syaoran yet, and he urged them on into the grey hills ahead. He no longer spoke aloud, not even to encourage her to follow, nor did he even notice how his own body sagged with fatigue with every step. Whenever she looked at him directly a dozen other ghost-faces shimmered alongside him, just barely out of alignment with his features. Even her own Syaoran had been taken by them.

With strength she hadn't known she still possessed, Sakura let out a cry and launched herself to knock him to the ground. She called his name over and over again, begged the ghosts to give him back to her. She offered them anything, promised never to ask them anything else ever again, until even her voice failed.

Around them, the storm began to calm, and Sakura felt Syaoran move a hand to rest against her hair and softly whisper her name.

They stayed there together like that, curled in the little hollow where they'd fallen, until the sun rose the following day.

Syaoran was never the same again after their ordeal. When the dead left, they took much of his memory away with them, though Sakura did not have the chance to fully discover this until much later. Many of those dead children who'd followed them out never left him at all. They'd always be there around him, the faintest suggestion of an afterimage, visible to no-one but her. But he was alive, he was still her own Syaoran and he always would be, and as long as she had that much, Sakura never felt she had the right to weep for anything they'd lost.

* * *

They woke the next morning cold, sore, and as lost as any two people could be. The Complex still loomed out of the landscape behind them, but they felt no inclination to go back. Neither had any shoes, and the clothes they wore were designed for a life of indoor wear. They had no clear idea at the time whether there was anything else in the world for them to run away to.

When they reached the junk pile at the end of a long day's walk, they were both worn ragged with fatigue and parched with thirst, Sakura's bare feet so red with blisters that every step had become an agony. The dull grey of the deadlands stretched out all around them as far as they could see all day—the old junk pile was the only thing in sight that looked like it might offer some kind of shelter. There was nothing welcoming about the heaps of broken machine-parts when they got close enough to see it as more than a distant blur.

There was so little keeping them on their feet when they arrived that they didn't see the man standing there until they'd nearly walked right into him. It was the sound of something falling off the junk pile that made Sakura look up from her dazed fixation on the ground in front of her feet, but it wasn't what had fallen that made her let out a cry of surprise. Only paces ahead of them stood a tall man with short-cropped dark hair. He couldn't have been any more aware the children were coming than they'd been of him. Their soft feet had made little noise, and he didn't turn to look at them until he heard Sakura cry out. He was dressed in a cloak of heavy material and had the kind of face that defaulted to a scowl. To Sakura he seemed huge and terrifying.

He was no less threatening to Syaoran either. The boy had been dragging on his feet until that moment, but as soon as he and the man had seen each other he'd leapt in front of Sakura and launched himself at the stranger in a flying kick. The man simply leaned to avoid him, and while Syaoran was still in mid air, caught him with a punch to the stomach that knocked the boy to the ground at his feet. Syaoran did not try to get up again, just stared helplessly at the man standing over him. No-one had ever disabled him so fast before.

As the man took a step towards him, Sakura let out another cry and threw herself over Syaoran.

"No, please—please don't hurt Syaoran anymore!" she begged. "He doesn't mean anything bad—he's only trying to protect me, please!"

The man was not obviously moved by this display, but something in his face did soften a bit. "I'm not going to hurt you," he told Sakura when she dared look up at him again.

Another clatter from the junk pile drew Sakura's attention higher, to see a second man whom she hadn't noticed before, just in the act of leaping lithely back down to the ground. He was dressed much the same as the first man, but he had soft, white hair and a face far accustomed to smiling than frowning. He was certainly all smiles when he joined the other three.

"Well, what have we here?" he said, crouching to put himself on the children's level. "Oh, aren't they sweet? Are we keeping them?" Most of this was directed at his companion, who rolled his eyes. "You don't suppose they've anything to do with all that disturbance we picked up before, do you?"

"You're the expert," said the darker man, dryly. Sakura felt like she must have done something personally to offend him, from the way he looked at her, though she couldn't begin to imagine how.

"Oh, you know what the accident reports are like—all techno-babble and code in need-to-know speak," said the pale man, waving a hand dismissively. "It could've meant anything! But introductions must come first, surely. The name's Fye D. Flowright," he told Sakura, addressing her directly for the first time. "And my not-so-charming companion here is K..."

"Kurogane," finished the other man firmly.

"Why don't you tell us your names?" Fye suggested, without missing a beat.

Sakura blinked up at him. Later, she'd identify that moment as when it had first started to feel there might be a place for her and Syaoran in this great wide world after all.


	14. Book 2-7

Fye had always liked talking. He'd quite happily spin lengthy yarns on just about any subject anyone wanted to raise with him, and quite a few they didn't. Over the years he'd told the others countless tales about the mysterious world of the Complex where he was raised, some less exaggerated than others. But on the subject of his own life there—and particularly on the gritty issue of how he left—he'd always stayed silent.

He had his reasons—Kurogane's somewhat ironic rule about pasts not mattering at their camp was not much more than a convenient excuse to avoid the subject. However, not least of all the reasons was that secrecy was a habit of his, and by this stage of his life it would have been a very hard habit to break.

Fye had not been old enough on the April Fool's Day when the world ended to remember it very well, but he did know he'd had a mother before it, and that afterwards, he never saw her again. Nothing that passed in the long years afterwards could ever match the horror of the months immediately following the day the world came apart, when the millions upon millions of deaths that marked the first catastrophe were followed with thousands more by the day, as desperate survivors dropped like flies on a planet no longer fit to support them. The project behind the Complexes was the first real beacon of hope—but it was a weak hope at best. The land and resources that could be salvaged and protected fast enough would not support more than a few thousand people in total out of all those who survived.

There were more than enough horrors that time would be remembered for, but many more that would be forgotten. There had perhaps been never so thankless a task as that of selecting the names of the individuals who the Complexes would save, from among the myriad more whom there would be was no space for.

There was never any question of deciding by random ballot. To survive, the Complexes needed people who were healthy and fit, who had the skills to keep the operation running, and the emotional strength not to be driven crazy by their containment when only a thin bubble of glass and plastic protected them from the harsh alien landscape outside. By any standards, Ashura Flowright was exactly the kind of person they were looking for. He was young and relatively fit. More importantly, he was a technological genius of a rank few of his peers (living or dead) ever matched. The Complexes also needed children—a second generation that could eventually grow to replace the first, but in the early days there was a limit to how many unproductive young mouths they could afford to feed. It would have been tempting to take in as many innocent children as could be found, but it would have been self-defeating to try to support more than there would be food for. To prevent such sentimental mistakes, strict rules were enforced to govern how many would be taken in. Among those rules was the regulation of not more than one child for each adult parent—and here Fye's perfect candidate of a father hit a snag, for Ashura's son was one of twins.

It is worth noting that the choice Ashura made that day was never his only option. He could have refused the Complex's offer and opted to take his chances raising his boys in the deadlands as best he could. He could have accepted the rule and the hard choice of selecting only one son to save. There was even some slim chance an application to bring both boys to the Complex might have succeeded, had an extra position for a child been found by the end of the selection process. However, it was true that he had only one option that guaranteed he could bring both sons into the Complex with him, and that was for his two boys to become just one.

This impossible plan was quite fundamentally simple in execution. If the boys hadn't been twins it would never have worked, but since they were, all he needed to do was to ensure that not more than one of them would ever be seen at a time. The twins were thus reduced to have only one identity that had to be shared between them. Day by day, the brothers took it in turns to be Fye.

Needless to say, the Flowright boys had an unconventional sort of childhood.

Few men other than Ashura Flowright could ever have made the plan work. Official computer records predating April Fool's Day which listed him as the father of twins had to be altered—and altered carefully—before his name came up as a candidate for the Complex project at all. Nor was that the only record that needed to be discretely changed—throughout his sons' young lives, the amount of food delivered to his family was never recorded quite correctly, amongst any number of other apparently harmless pieces of statistical data. However, the Complex itself ran on computers, and Ashura had the ability with them no-one else still living could match.

Still, computers were easily fooled compared to human beings. The most part of the task of hiding their secret fell to the twins themselves. Complex accommodation did not offer much in the way of privacy, but there was at least enough space in Ashura's home to for one young boy—or later, one young man—to conceal himself through the day, while his brother was out using their name in the world. Each day, one or the other of them would go out into the small world of the Complex, attend his lessons, play with his friends—everything a normal young boy would do in an average day. In the evening, he'd return home, and for as many hours as he needed, he'd tell his brother everything that had passed during the day—every lesson learned, person met, conversation exchanged—everything the other might conceivably need to play the same role the next day. When tomorrow dawned, the other of the Fyes would take his turn to leave the house and play his role in the world, while his brother waited at home, passing the day out of sight with their books and toys for company.

Never ending care had to be taken to keep them identical. If one had his hair cut, the other's would have to be cut that same way. If one was bruised or injured, the other would have to wear a bandage in the same place. Both would spend days which stretched into years locked up out of sight. It was a strange way of life, but it never seemed as wrong to the boys as it ought. In their early years, they were far too young to understand exactly why it was necessary that they play this elaborate trick on the rest of the world, but there was a hypnotic quality to their father's voice and smile, and when he explained to his two young boys how their lives would work in this strange new setting, they'd both nodded solemnly. It hadn't occurred to them to question the plan they'd been instructed with.

Nor did the task of sharing their lives so completely seem like any great chore. By the time evening came, whichever of them had left would arrive home bursting with things to share with his brother, and the other just as eager to listen. So intertwined were their lives—far above and beyond even the usual bond between twins—nothing that happened ever seemed fully real to them until both had heard the news. From the first, the boys trained themselves to take the most fantastic attention to detail in everything they did. Anything that left the slightest impression on them would need to be recalled in sequence and conveyed to the other. Visualisation too became a specialisation for both of them. They'd listen so intently to the other's stories, work so hard to picture it in their own minds, that by the end of the nightly conversation , both might just about believe they'd truly experienced all those events themselves.

A lifetime later, there'd still be memories the remaining Fye could not have said for sure were his, or whether they were something his brother had told him.

Naturally, the system wasn't perfect. Mistakes would be made, details excluded. Inevitably, there would be days when Fye would find one of his friends or colleagues calling on him with reference to some trivial conversation which his brother had forgotten about the evening before, but just as surely would have remembered when prompted if it had been actually _him_ there on the following day. Not for nothing did Fye master the art of bluffing his way around difficult questions, and weaving elaborate and surprisingly plausible stories at the drop of a hat. If Fye D. Flowright went on to develop a reputation for having an unusually selective memory, well, surely his unquestionable talent and charming disposition made up for that quirk a dozen times over. If there was a mischievous element to that beaming smile of his, no-one ever guessed quite what it meant.

As the boys grew older, Fye went on to develop the reputation as a technological genius who could do the work of two—with the simple explanation that in fact two were contributing to the workload assigned to one. The twins learned as they grew to make good use of those hours spent trapped in the house, and they'd spend a good portion in front of a computer doing homework—or later, reprogramming whole sectors of the Complex's central system while the other was out making an official appearance and doing his own share. By the age of twenty, Fye was a boon to the Complex's technical department like no other of his age

* * *

It is difficult to say just when Ashura began to go mad. It may well have been before he came to the Complex at all—what he did with his sons was scarcely to be lauded as the act of a sane man. Watching the end of the world drove better men than him stark raving mad. The Complex's original screening process required that every promising applicant be checked by two separate psychiatrists for any sign of mental instability—though it's also possible that, faced with a genius like Ashura's, with such an obviously devoted father with such a sweet little son, the best doctors might have given him the all-clear faster than they should have.

On the other hand, the burden of hiding such a secret for so many years might have driven anyone mad eventually. Always remembering never to refer to his sons in plural, always watching for the slightest hint that anyone had caught on to their ruse—few sane people could have endured it all for half as long as he kept it up.

Whatever the specifics, it is clear that by the time his boys were on the verge of reaching adulthood, he had devoted far too many years of effort to concealing their secret to think much of what else might need to be done.

* * *

Administration never did obtain full details of the incident that sparked the end for the Flowrights, but it proceeded roughly like so.

It was morning. Ashura had just concluded an unremarkable conversation with a colleague on the subject of an administrative issue relating to account management on their computer system, when she happened to glance back at a window she'd been just about to close, frowned, and said, _that's odd, we're recording Fye as being logged in at two different places at once._

_An error?_ Ashura suggested, as if nothing was amiss.

_I don't see how,_ she'd said in reply, _I only just finished checking this._ There was an ominous series of keystrokes, followed by her declaration that it couldn't possibly be an error, when the two 'Fyes' weren't even logged in at the same place. One of them was in the office, the other in the Flowrights' home.

_Ah,_ Ashura had replied, only inwardly put out that anyone was paying so much attention to a part of the system that usually went safely ignored for months at a time. _He's probably left an automated script running from home. He does that sort of thing now and then._

His colleague seemed satisfied enough by that to let the matter go. Conversations of that nature usually ended that way.

Two hours passed, bringing the day through the communal lunch hour without further incident. Barely fifteen minutes after that, however, Ashura found his colleague tapping him urgently on the shoulder. It was about that second Fye she'd seen logged into the network.

_I had Plum keep an eye on it,_ she told him, breath short with urgency, _and she just saw that other account access and recompile a whole block of the security system's backup code. That can't be an automated script_ — _there must be someone in your house, hacking the system through your son's account!_

_Are you sure?_ Ashura had asked, his face betraying no more than the mildest concern.

His colleague launched into a lengthy theory about the bad habit so many of them had of leaving log-in details saved in their personal computers—ripe for anyone who'd broken into the Flowrights' house to access. It was a very good theory, leaving Ashura and any of his sons quite blameless, but investigating it would mean letting strangers into his house—probably that very hour of that very day. It would mean their living quarters would be examined in the minutest detail, and sooner or later, it would mean the discovery that the two persons supposedly living there had left three sets of fingerprints on all their belongings.

Ashura had some practice with decisions like the one he made then. Just like the day he brought his sons into the Complex long ago, what he decided on was not his only option by any half-hearted attempt at justification. However, this time he would be proven wrong in supposing that he'd made the one sure choice available to protect himself and his sons.

_Have you told anyone else about this yet?_ he asked his colleague, and smiled when she answered in the negative.

* * *

_So how was your day?_ Fye asked him while they made their way home that evening, his son stretching his arms behind him in his long-limbed way.

_Oh,_ Ashura had replied, _nothing out of the ordinary._

The boys would be just as horrified as everyone else when they discovered what had really occurred.

* * *

Even a genius will occasionally slip up. Ashura did a careful and thorough job. The Complex administration never did find the woman's body, but they soon discovered she was missing, and the investigation into how she could have disappeared so completely was a long and painstaking process.

The details of that part of the story were tedious and technical—inquiry after inquiry, search after fruitless search. They should have eventually declared the whole affair a hopeless, unresolvable mystery had Ashura succeeded in erasing all evidence as completely as he intended. However, in just a few subtle details, Ashura failed. By the time the investigation reached its end, the whole Complex had been informed of two terrible secrets: that Ashura Flowright was a murderer, and that Fye D. Flowright was made up of identical twins.

In the entire history of the Complex, there'd been no scandal like it.

The punishment dealt to the Flowrights might have had its controversies, but Complex law on the matter was clear. The punishment for murder was permanent exile to the deadlands. The rather unusual crime of the two Flowright boys was a more complicated matter. If the discovery had been made when they were a few years younger, they might even have gone blameless, but at the age of eighteen they were no longer granted any excuse, and all their lives they had benefited from a crime which dated to the foundation of their colony. Two years of exile was their sentence.

Altogether then, the three living Flowrights were pushed from the comfort of and safety of the Complex, out into the harsh, dying world outside.

Two years passed, then four, then six. Not one of them ever returned.


	15. Book 2-8

Kurogane had never deliberately gone looking for the Flowrights. Even if they'd survived, finding them would be like finding a needle in a haystack out in this country with the trail so many years cold. So it wasn't until a single, promising rumour reached his ears and he found himself abandoning all his travel plans overnight to follow it—four months and over a hundred kilometres from where he'd had to leave Souma's body—that he had to admit how hard some part of him had been listening for it all along.

The rumour involved a gang who made camp a day's travel away, and a man with white hair, unusually clean teeth and skin, and mechanical skills of a calibre practically unheard of to the deadlands gangs. The explanation was far too obvious to ignore. Kurogane had brought himself within walking distance of the place before sunset the next day.

Through his binoculars, from as close as he dared go to an unfamiliar camp, the residents looked like a typical example of their kind—a gang of a medium size, probably just organised enough to keep themselves running. None of the people he saw matched the description he'd been given, but something unexpected had obviously transpired there in the very recent past. Smoke still wafted from the carcass of one of their larger vehicles, much of which was still buried in the sand that had been piled on to it in a rudimentary attempt at fire-fighting. As Kurogane watched, four angry, tired men on motorbikes pulled up, argued loudly with some of their fellows, refuelled and set off again in another direction. There were a couple of buildings which men disappeared into or appeared out of from time to time, and Kurogane's binoculars were no help to him in discovering what else might lie inside, but by the end of the first couple of hours, he'd already concluded that if there'd ever been anyone by the name of Flowright at this camp, he was gone.

Tilting his binoculars a little to the East revealed a hilly area, probably only a few hours travel away. It occurred to Kurogane that, although none of the riders from the camp had bothered with that particular direction, there ought to be a good supply of places to hide in terrain like that.

He took the long way around the camp, though, to be sure to stay out of sight.

* * *

The hills were even worse country than Kurogane had supposed from a distance—steep and rocky, barren of even the poison grass that was taking over the better parts of the deadlands. It would be hopeless to try and bring a party of vehicles through here, but one person could slip out of sight quite effectively and not be seen again, which was not a greatly encouraging thought. As it was, it took him two days to find any sign of any other human being there at all.

He happened upon his target more by change than design. Kurogane rounded the top of a hill in one of the rockier areas, and discovered that the land over the peak was flatter and sandier than he'd anticipated. Nested in a cosy little hollow, someone had set up camp. It was the most basic of one-man affairs—marked only by a pack and a few unremarkable possessions which lay scattered around. There wasn't even a fire to give it the semblance of anything more homely. The person who'd made the camp had their back to anyone approaching from that side, all features concealed by a long coat and hood—but barely had Kurogane laid eyes on the stranger when there was the softest of footsteps behind him and the unmistakable click of a gun being brought level to aim. He swore at himself under his breath—apparently this camp wasn't too basic to be guarded.

The figure in the cloak turned around, pushed back the hood and gave the intruder a thoughtful once-over. Kurogane had been more or less expecting the soft, white hair and the unusually pale complexion that greeted him, though these also came with a smug sort of smile that as good as said, 'By all means, do feel free to have a look behind yourself. No sudden movements, _thank_ you.'

Kurogane took the invitation, turning slowly and deliberately. Behind him stood a skinny girl with long, blonde hair and oversized, pointy earmuffs protruding from both sides of her head. She must have stepped out from a crack between two of the boulders he'd just passed—she'd easily fit. She had a businesslike looking weapon trained on him in the manner of someone who'd listened to the instructions on how to use it very carefully. She didn't look obviously threatening, triumphant, nervous, or any other expression you'd expect to see on the face of a young girl who might soon be expected to shoot someone. She looked as though she'd simply been told what to do if anyone came between her and the camp, and was following her instructions as she would any other.

"She's a computer," said Kurogane before he could think better of it.

"Hmm?" said the man behind him, sounding truly fascinated by that observation. Kurogane knew when he turned back around again he'd be facing one raised eyebrow and mentally cursed himself again for being so careless with what he said.

"Indeed she is, how nicely picked!" the Flowright went on. "And a far finer one than you'll see anywhere else nowadays, if I do say so myself."

"Ah," said Kurogane vaguely.

The man gave him another speculative look. "You'll have to excuse me, I was expecting someone else. But you're _not_ from that gang, are you?"

"What gang?" asked Kurogane, finally gathering the sense to remember how to go a conversation without giving away everything he knew in one shot.

"Recently-former acquaintances of ours," the man explained mildly. "A shame—they seemed so eager about getting a good technician to work for them at first, but before long I'm afraid some of them started to get some funny ideas in their heads about just what else my Chi might be used for, and we had to make a bit of an unscheduled exit. But a fine young man like you wouldn't have anything to do with anyone like that, would you?"

"I'm freelance," Kurogane confirmed, letting the 'fine, young man' part go for the moment.

"Splendid!" the Flowright beamed. "Then why don't you put down that nasty big gun of yours and we can have a nice bit of a chat like civilised individuals. Don't worry, Chi will take excellent care of it for you." He patted the spot next to him invitingly.

"Chii," said Chi. Kurogane didn't wonder too hard how to interpret that. She didn't lower the gun at all until Kurogane's own weapon had been safely deposited on the ground.

"Now then," said the man, beaming even wider now that Kurogane was proving so cooperative, "I'm Fye D. Flowright, by name. And you would be?"

"Kurogane."

"Just Kurogane? No last name?"

None he wanted to remember at this point. "Orphaned from too young to know," said Kurogane, which was at least most of the truth.

"Well, I won't hold it against you. Why don't you have a seat? I was just about to have some dinner. Nothing fancy, but I'm sure I've got enough for two."

"I've got my own," Kurogane replied, wondering what in anyone's diet counted as 'fancy' out here.

"Then you can return the favour by sharing out some of yours tomorrow," Fye replied, as if nothing in the world could possibly make him happier. "So, tell me a bit more about yourself...."

* * *

It was vaguely offensive just how fast Fye took a liking to his new companion as the evening progressed. Kurogane knew himself well enough to know he was a good deal more trustworthy than most of the tough, well-armed loners who could be found wandering the deadlands (putting aside a couple of particular past indiscretions, which he'd forgiven himself for as far as he deserved) but he doubted he did much to project that. Someone in Fye's position shouldn't have been able to risk of trusting a stranger in any case, but as it was, Kurogane was even allowed his weapon back in his hands before it had gotten very late. Fye was quick to make it known he was very much open to the idea of teaming up with someone like his fine new friend, with enthusiasm which bordered on offensive in a whole other respect. Kurogane seemed to have been given very little choice in the matter.

_Fye_ —that was how he'd introduced himself, Kurogane thought to himself later, when they were both preparing to get to bed, and his new acquaintance had finally shut up for enough consecutive seconds to give him the chance to think at all. But then, both of the boys had gone by 'Fye', hadn't they? And there'd been a father with them originally—a madman by all accounts (and the world might be lucky if he hadn't passed the same madness on to his sons, going by the rumours about what had gone into raising them). Whatever had passed in the years since the familiar part of that story ended, however, had clearly left this 'Fye' completely alone. Kurogane couldn't imagine there were any nice reasons for a development like that.

There were far too many reasons why he couldn't ask about it. Not without his questions prompting a whole new string of questions about just how one well-armed loner from out here could have heard so much of the Flowrights' story to begin with, which he wasn't ready to answer yet—possibly not ever. Kurogane wasn't sure whether he even wanted to know the details. Some things were better left in the past.

It was past sunset by then, though not yet completely dark, but Kurogane must have spent rather too long staring in Fye's direction while he was thinking, because that was when Fye took on a happily thoughtful expression of his own—one that could only mean he'd taken all that attention to mean something much more flattering than he should. All in one motion, he rolled his long-limbed body over into Kurogane's personal space, to suspend himself over his new friend's lying form in an expectant sort of way.

Kurogane pushed him off again with as much dignity as he could manage.

"You're not expected to do that," he said, the first useful words that came to him. Lord knew worse favours were expected for the privilege of joining certain gangs.

Fye deigned to look not nearly as offended as he might. "But what if I'd _like_ to, Kuro-dear?"

The obvious protest—that the feeling was in no way mutual—stuck to Kurogane's tongue. He'd known Fye less than a day, and was already suffering from the unaccountable knowledge that no power he possessed would make Fye believe him.


	16. Book 2-9

By the time he and Doumeki got back, Watanuki was just about ready to vault off the bike and go hunting for Kohane the moment they came to a stop—so it rather threw him off his stride when he spotted her standing on the edge of the camp as soon as she was close enough to recognise. What she was doing out here wasn't so immediately obvious, but the load of old clothing in her arms suggested that someone had found something harmlessly domestic for her to do with herself. She looked hopeful and pleased to see him back, but at the same time it was so painfully obvious that nothing unpleasant had happened to her while he was away that he felt momentarily foolish for letting his absence from the camp bother him so much.

"You had a successful trip?" she asked when he reached her.

"We did," said Watanuki. "We found what we were looking for, anyway, and we shouldn't need a second trip this time."

"Was it the ghost I saw following you before? The pale lady with the soft hair and the wings?"

"That was her," said Watanuki, surprised though not displeased to be having this sort of conversation. If Sakura had ever seen any of his guides she'd not brought it up, and she'd always seemed so uncomfortable with the subject of her ability that he hadn't liked to raise it. He'd never even imagined being able to talk to someone about it like this. "She seemed sad but hopeful. She didn't say much, but she was very polite."

Kohane nodded, then looked downwards a trifle uncomfortably. "Kimihiro... could I talk to you about something?"

This wasn't made to sound like a small kind of 'something'.

Watanuki glanced back at the bike apprehensively. He should probably have been helping Doumeki store away their haul, but there wasn't so much to carry that it really needed to be a two person job. He could get away with sparing some time for whatever Kohane wanted to talk about, especially when she was still so new to their camp and had so much adjusting to do.

"Okay," he said, only a little nervous. "We could go around the other side of the camp. We shouldn't be bothered there."

Kohane kept hold of her load of clothing as they moved to the new location and balanced it on her lap when they sat down.

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" Watanuki prompted her, after a moment's silence.

Kohane took a small breath. "The Complex," she said. "It's about what happened there." Watanuki's heart sank. He supposed he should've known this was coming, but his usual finds _couldn't_ talk about their pasts, however tragic they might be, and his campmates... didn't, for the most part. But if Kohane needed someone to hear her story, the least he could do was listen. "It must have been terrifying for you," he offered, then immediately felt just how inadequate a sentiment that was.

But Kohane was shaking her head. "That's not all. What happened... might have been because of me."

Watanuki's first impulse was to dismiss that as ridiculous—survivor's guilt taken to unnatural extremes—but his better judgement made himself clamp down on it before he blurted anything out. "You'd better tell me what you mean," he said carefully.

"I told you about how my mother got us into the Complex before," Kohane began, eyes fixed firmly somewhere in the middle of the clothing pile on her lap. "They were interested in studying how someone like me could see ghosts. They thought that if they could understand how I saw the them, eventually they could find a way to see them too."

"But why...?" was on the tip of Watanuki's tongue before he bit down on that impulse too. Why should it be a surprise? He was no stranger to the fascination abilities like his inspired in ordinary people.

"They spent a lot of time trying to understand how it worked," Kohane went on, her story increasingly littered with awkward stops and starts as she put the words together . "They tried a lot of different things. They examined me over and over again—my whole body, but especially my eyes. They also had ways of looking inside my brain. It didn't hurt," she amended, seeing Watanuki's expression. "Mostly, they'd hold my head in place and use a scanning machine that could see through my skull. They had other ways too. I don't know exactly what they were looking for, but they never found it.

"They'd also take me places—especially places they knew someone had died, and ask me if there were ghosts there. They wanted me to describe everything I saw. I told them the truth at first—that there were ghosts everywhere—but it wasn't what they wanted to hear. I think they wanted to understand why some people become ghosts and others don't, or what it's like to be one. They were trying to make machines or drugs that would let them see what you and I see, but nothing they tried worked very well. Sometimes, the ghosts would break their machines. They didn't seem to like them much." She snuck a small glance at Watanuki here, but finding no sign of skepticism, she went on.

"It was like that every day—ever since my mother brought us to the Complex. I hardly saw anyone but the scientists and her. I thought that might be all I'd ever be allowed to do. I was so tired of it—over and over, the same questions, and nothing ever changed. I wanted it to stop. I wanted to get out. That's why... I did something I wasn't supposed to do.

"A while ago, I stopped answering their questions. I'd tell them I couldn't see any ghosts in the places they took me—I hoped maybe that would make them stop asking. Soon, they got angry with me. Some thought I'd lost my ability, but some of them guessed I was lying. Others thought it had all been a hoax from the beginning. My mother was furious too. She was terrified we'd be thrown out of the Complex if I didn't do what they said. She knew I'd never felt like I belonged there, but she said I'd been too young to understand how terrible it could be outside. She hit me—a few times..."

"Your own mother..." Watanuki echoed in horror, unable to keep the silence he'd promised himself any longer. He could hardly even remember his parents after all this time, but the childhood belief that if they'd only survived they'd have been able to fix things had stayed with him for a long time.

"She didn't hit me hard. She just wanted me to understand how angry she was," said Kohane, but her eyes remained downcast as she spoke.

"Later," she continued, "they said that if I didn't want to cooperate anymore they'd try something new—something that would work whether I behaved or not. They strapped me down—my whole body. There were more machines—new ones I hadn't seen before. I thought—I mean, somehow it felt like they were going to try to pull everything that had ever let me see the ghosts right out of me. I was so scared..."

Kohane shivered then and trailed off. The unspoken volume of what she wouldn't describe about the experience hung uncomfortably over them, so heavily that Watanuki would later be remember it as a visible thing, writhing like a dark mass around their heads. Kohane curled her fingers in the fabric pile on her lap for a few seconds before continuing, voice held carefully steady to the last.

"Maybe I was wrong—maybe they just wanted me to be scared so I'd be good again, but I thought I was going to die. I think the ghosts thought so too. Even if they couldn't speak to me, I meant something to them. I could tell they wanted to protect me, more than they cared about anything else.

"I don't remember properly what happened after that. It was all so confusing. But they were so _angry_. That's why they destroyed the Complex... all for me."

Watanuki listened through the last of the story in silence, a horrible sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach and working its way upwards through his chest. A whole Complex decimated by ghosts—it very notion should have been unbelievable, but for a world so filled with ghosts as theirs... why should the casualties of their rage end with something so insignificant as one small gang? For the first time, the incident that had destroyed his former gang paled in significance when held against a horror so great.

"They do things like that sometimes," he heard himself say, weakly. "They get protective if one of the few living people who can see them are threatened. I never imagined it could get so bad they could ruin something that big, but... there are always so many of them. And some of them can do such terrible things."

"I thought so," said Kohane, hunching inwards on herself. "That really was why the Complex was destroyed."

"But... that doesn't mean it was your fault!" Watanuki rushed to add. "There was no way you could have known...."

"I didn't know it could happen," said Kohane, before he could go further. "I didn't know what they were doing to me. I hated the Complex, but I never meant for anything like that to happen. But... I told lies. I did things my mother and everyone else I ever knew there told me not to do, and if I hadn't done that, so many people wouldn't have had to die. If I'd never gone to the Complex—if I'd never been born, that's all it would have taken..."

A drop of moisture landed on the pile of clothes on Kohane's lap leaving a tiny, darkened blotch, followed by a second and a third.

For Watanuki, it was the worst moments with Himawari all over again. To see another so desperate to erase a hurt they'd never wanted to cause, to need to be able to make everything better for someone hurting that much—Kohane did not lie dying, and yet he felt as helpless now as he had been then. Watanuki had never wanted to be able to offer someone else comfort so much as he did in that moment, but there was nothing he could say that could fix something this bad.

Knowing Kohane didn't expect him to do more than be here for her, to be her confessor, did little to ease that feeling. She was like another ghost—all he could do was listen to this terrible thing, and by doing so offer to share as much of that burden as his slender shoulders could bear.

* * *

Doumeki had hardly begun looking when Watanuki just about walked into him from the opposite direction. He looked... well, 'preoccupied' didn't cover his expression; he looked miserable, and was hiding it badly.

"Weren't you with Kohane?" Doumeki asked him.

Watanuki attempted a glare at him without making eye contact, which didn't work. "That's not any of your business, is it?" he said, unusually defensive.

"It was supposed to be why you weren't helping me unload the bike," Doumeki pointed out.

"So? There was only one pack, you didn't need any help so I'm not shirking chores."

Doumeki looked over Watanuki's shoulder and around them, but found evidence in the form of Kohane herself nowhere to be found. Still... "Did she say something to you?"

"What? Even if she did, I don't see how it would that be any of your business." The idea that Doumeki still existed and had the gall to try to take an interest in his life seemed to be irritating him even more than usual today.

 _Because whatever happened has you upset_ , was the answer to that, but Doumeki found himself keeping his silence. Watanuki did have the right to some privacy (Kohane too, though her newness to the camp made that more of a privilege), and it was painfully evident that whatever had upset Watanuki, he wasn't ready to talk about it yet the way he'd talked about similar worries before. Doumeki had caught him at the wrong moment for this.

This would have been a far more satisfactory answer if there'd been anything between them lately but a steady string of wrong moments. Even the mission to the Complex had produced little more than a temporary truce.

"...if you say so," said Doumeki instead, and with minimal difficulty made himself walk past and away.


	17. Book 2-10

Two weeks after Kohane had arrived, and Doumeki still wasn't comfortable with her.

The same had been true of Watanuki at the same point in his own initiation, but with Kohane, it probably should have been simpler. She was quiet and unassuming, and even if she was weak, unskilled, and not the fastest of learners, she would apply herself diligently to whatever task she was given without complaint. She ought to have been as unthreatening as they came, save only the matter of her recent past. It was no secret she wasn't the only member of the camp whose history passed through the Complexes, but she was the only one for whom it loomed so close in her shadow as to continue to dominate her present. None of the others at Kurogane's camp had brought the ghost of a dead Complex with them.

She didn't talk about it—at least not in Doumeki's hearing, but that made the matter worse rather than better. The only person in their camp she'd connected with was Watanuki, but he was still so strange to Doumeki and the others that his bone with Kohane seemed only to pull him away, rather than to bring her closer. The other camp members dealt with her well enough, but there was still that residual awkwardness looming over the situation, and it was too early to say how much time alone could dissipate.

Attempts to engage Watanuki on the subject only produced reminders that Kohane was still settling in, and blunt allegations that Doumeki wasn't even trying to understand how much she'd been through. It was plain even Watanuki was bothered by whatever she'd told him, but something kept him from opening up on the subject the way he had on similar occasions in the past.

The memory of the look on Watanuki's face when Doumeki had lifted him off his feet by the collar tended to come to mind whenever Doumeki let himself think that far, but he pushed the thought away.

It was only when the other camp members did start to relax around Kohane that Doumeki had to remind himself of their golden rule about people's pasts, and begin to question his own perspective on this matter. He tried briefly to pin his irritation on the idea Watanuki had presumed so much as to demand they take her in at all, but Kohane being another mouth to feed had never been the problem. Watanuki had brought them enough new supplies over the last few months that if anything their situation was worryingly comfortable (worryingly, because from here things could only possibly get worse). He was well within his rights to request they support one more person with his help. No, the real problem was that Watanuki was giving Kohane more attention than he'd paid to anyone but Doumeki since arriving. Doumeki was letting himself fall victim to jealousy, and that was just stupid.

By the time Kurogane went out of his way to talk to him about it in person, Doumeki was already well on the way to a minor revelation all of his own. 

* * *

Strictly speaking, Kurogane still wasn't comfortable with Kohane either. As the camp leader, it was his job not to be—not while any real doubt remained, and that might linger for a while yet. It wasn't her fault, more was the shame of it—but the circumstances under which she'd joined them had done neither her nor Watanuki any favours, especially when he himself was barely past his own suspicion period. He'd long since proven his value, his willingness to work hard—even to risk his life for the good of the camp—but his judgement and common sense were another matter. Kurogane knew all too well how little what good intentions were worth when misdirected.

If Doumeki had his doubts about either of their newest members—and something had clearly stirred up his suspicions again recently, long after they'd apparently settled—then Kurogane would be inclined to sympathise. He, too, had never been entirely pleased with the supernatural world that had opened up beneath their feet since the April Fool arrived at their camp, no matter how useful it might be. But if Doumeki hadn't yet brought whatever was so obviously bothering him to Kurogane's attention, then that suggested the matter was personal, and that was other territory altogether. 

Leadership was something Kurogane had fallen into mostly by accident. He'd never gone planned on starting his own gang—he'd never planned much at all before their camp began to coalesce, which might have been the problem. But a group in their position needed at least a de facto leader to function; Fye had no interest in taking responsibility for anything outside of his particular area of expertise, and the rest of their gang were too young to exert much authority. That Kurogane had come to this life with no leadership experience to speak of—that in fact taking orders was far more natural to him than giving them—remained more than any other in the camp knew about him, so the irony was his alone to appreciate.

Still, there was more to being a leader than making people follow instructions—that, as far as Kurogane was concerned, was the easy part. The hard part was keeping a small group of oft-near-starving people in one camp with no-one but one another for company from winding up at each other's throats. Mostly, the situation took care of itself—or Fye took care of it, since it was Kurogane's understanding that Fye had never met anyone he didn't like, and was so earnest in his belief that everyone could get on that it was very hard to disagree with him. It wasn't for nothing that virtually everyone in the camp had wound up on first-name basis without ever quite realising how they got there. 

Doumeki, unfortunately, was one of the few largely immune to Fye's brand of charm. Usually, that emotional distance was his own defence, but when something did find its way under his skin, Fye's approach was ill-suited to help.

That left Kurogane to talk to Doumeki personally—and _that_ was a task to be approached with some care.

* * *

On the way out of the camp on their next hunting trip, Kurogane broke their usual silence long enough to say, "You've still got the business from the ruined Complex on your mind." It wasn't a question, and Doumeki didn't bother denying it, though he did raise an eyebrow, as if wondering where this might go.

"It isn't over yet, is it?" Doumeki replied. "The other Complexes can't ignore it. They'll want to know why."

"Probably," said Kurogane. "But that's no business of ours."

Doumeki cast a scathing look out into the distance—almost as if he imagined armoured men might be coming for them even now, to demand to know exactly where they'd been the moment the Complex fell. "Isn't it? Watanuki may have made it our business." "You mean Kohane?" said Kurogane, following his gaze. "The others say she sees ghosts too."

It wasn't evident from Doumeki's expression whether he'd already known this or not, but it didn't surprise him greatly. "That's three of them now."

"Like they attract each other," agreed Kurogane. It gave even someone as determinedly un-superstitious as himself the uncomfortable sensation that forces unseen were pulling their strings. "They're a strange novelty for the likes of us to be collecting. Unusual enough for us to be collecting lasting campmates at all."

Doumeki seemed to consider this, probably running over the short list of more temporary camp members who'd appeared in the years he'd been there, only to be removed from their numbers again, never for pleasant reasons. "There's been no-one since I joined who we kept."

"There was no-one before you who lasted either, not since the kids showed up, and we didn't count as a camp before that," Kurogane corrected him. "And you were the exception to begin with."

It was only when Doumeki looked at him questioningly that it occurred to Kurogane that that idle statement needed some clarification. "I never mentioned that I met your grandfather," he said, admitting the omission to himself as much as Doumeki. It seemed strange to bring it up now after all these years—but then, nor had the younger Doumeki admitted to the existence of a grandfather when he joined their camp, nor any other family, and Kurogane had found it appropriate to follow suit. If it wasn't for the undeniable resemblance between the boy and his grandfather, he might have doubted any connection beyond a coincidence of timing.

Doumeki stopped altogether and frowned at him. "When?"

"A year before you joined us. You weren't with him at the time, but he mentioned you. Said you'd need somewhere to go in the near future."

"Did he ask you to take me on?"

"That wasn't the way he put it." It was a bit long ago for Kurogane to remember the words Doumeki Haruka had used, just the general gist. "But he seemed to have an idea what was ahead."

"Did he say anything else?"

"Not that I recall." It hadn't been a long conversation. The older Doumeki had appeared to know his own business to a level that didn't invite questioning.

Doumeki looked thoughtful, but he didn't have any more questions, and the whole subject was dropped for the rest of the hunt, Kurogane not much the wiser but satisfied enough not to press things.

* * *

Parts of that conversation hung around the edges of Doumeki's mind for the rest of the day. The discovery that Kurogane had met Haruka was strangely unstartling; calming even—it fit. It wasn't likely Kurogane would have mentioned it to Watanuki—it would be even less like him to let it slip out unintended, but it wasn't impossible. This was the explanation he'd been looking for ever since he'd first heard his grandfather's name on Watanuki's lips—a mundane way for that knowledge to have reached him, that required nothing of the supernatural at all.

And Doumeki didn't believe it for a moment.

* * *

That evening, he cornered Watanuki in their shared room and stood, arms folded, in front of the door, blocking the exit.

Watanuki tried to glare daggers at him, but there was a weakness to his posture that kept it from being very convincing. "What do you _want?_ I still have chores I should be..."

"No you don't," said Doumeki. "We need to talk."

"Why?" Watanuki complained. "What would you...?"

"I'll rephrase. You need to talk to me."

"What _about?_ "

"That's up to you, isn't it?"

Watanuki was clearly warring with the urge to yell, argue—just for the habit of it as much as for the need to get out of this conversation, but instead, something drained out of him and he gave in.

"Do you know what Kohane's birthday is?" he asked, avoiding eye contact.

Doumeki blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, but since the answer was so obviously 'no' on his part, he stayed quiet and waited for Watanuki to explain wherever he might be going with this.

"April first," said Watanuki. "The same as me. Sakura too. We're all April Fools." He gave a weak laugh. "It fits, doesn't it? Anyone born on the day the whole world died spends their life seeing the dead. I always used to think I was the only one, but if _that's_ how it works there must be lots of people like me out there. Maybe hundreds!"

As an explanation for the supernatural, it was roughly as poetic as 'he sees the land of the dead with his dead eye'—excepting only that Watanuki had dismissed the traditional story out of hand when they first met. "I don't recall ever hearing of any other April Fools."

"That doesn't mean there aren't any, just that they're like Sakura and Kohane and can only see but not hear, or they're not stupid enough to get famous." Watanuki gave him another defeated attempt at a glare. "Do you know what really happened to Kohane's Complex? You remember what happened when you found me—you saw what was left. It was the same—they hurt Kohane and the ghosts all went mad. I didn't know it could even happen to anyone else, but it did—so much bigger and worse. It's probably happened before too. It could happen again."

Had he stopped there the implications would have been disturbing enough, but Watanuki was only getting started. "You can't... you _can't_ just not believe in ghosts anymore, don't you see? They're real! I've never been the only one who sees them, and even if you can't see them they can _still hurt you_. There are so many and they're everywhere, and if they get angry they can do terrible things. Real people have died without ever realising the danger until it was too late. I can't make them leave you alone just by letting you be all... noncommittal when I talk about them. _They're still going to be there_."

"So you're saying you need me to..." was as far as Doumeki got before Watanuki waved him back into silence again, his voice getting faster with every new sentence, the words running together as they came tumbling out.

"But I get that it's not that easy, alright? You can't see them, you've got to just take my word for it when I tell you about them, and you know, _I make mistakes_. I probably make more mistakes than I know. Ghosts lie and there's no-one else who can listen to what they're saying and help me figure out when they're not telling the truth. And that whole thing with your grandfather—I'm sorry about that, okay? I should have thought—I _know_ people don't like hearing about people they knew from me, but I was angry and I wasn't even thinking."

"What...?" Doumeki tried. This topic had come out of nowhere, but Watanuki ploughed on.

"It was stupid of me but I didn't even wonder—I didn't even realise you might not have known whether he was dead!"

There was that desperate note of hysteria in Watanuki's voice again—all too familiar. But just moments before when he'd been talking about the reality of the ghosts he'd sounded so sure of himself, and the change so fast over such a subject was almost more than Doumeki could take.

"But what do I know?" Watanuki went on, sounding genuinely miserable. "Maybe it wasn't even really him. Maybe it was you _great_ grandfather, or someone completely different just pretending to be him. There are so many ghosts that lie just to cause trouble—there are some that can change how they look just to make you think you're seeing someone you know, and I've never even met your real grandfather, so how would I know if it wasn't one like that? Maybe I _am_ wrong, maybe he's not dead at all. And even if he is, I should never have made such a big deal about it..."

This was who the April Fool had always been, Doumeki realised, with a moment of clarity that had been building up inside him for so long he had no excuse for his surprise—a boy-legend with a power everyone needed but no-one wanted, which they feared as much as they sought for it. Who'd seen so many people die for possession of his ability while he stood helpless, who was so used to being punished for everything he had no control over that he'd long since given up fighting it. All he hoped for was that the next tragedy he was forced to witness might be smaller than the last.

This was someone who needed Doumeki's acceptance so badly he'd make everything in the way his own fault. "You seemed sure it was him when you first told me," said Doumeki, as evenly as he could manage.

"Only because he looked like you and knew your name. But that doesn't mean..."

"What did he say?"

Watanuki hesitated. "It was nothing important—nothing specific. He just... asked how I was dealing with you, and with the camp. Told me it was worth sticking out even though things weren't looking good then. Apologised for not teaching you to be less stubborn when you were a kid." Details emerged as if being dragged out of him, one by one. "It _sounded_ so good I didn't even question it, but that was right in the middle of when you were gone and all the worst spirits came back. They _hate_ you and they were going out of their way to cause trouble and I should have realised..."

"That was him." Right then, Doumeki was more sure of that than reason alone could justify.

"You don't have to say that, you know," Watanuki protested, hanging his head. "If he might still be alive it's not going to help to believe that you're getting messages from something only pretending to be his ghost."

"That doesn't matter," said Doumeki, firm enough that Watanuki couldn't talk over him this time. He wasn't good at this—he had no practice at making someone else understand something so important.

Watanuki looked at Doumeki hopelessly, shook his head and let out a weak laugh—somehow with just that sound managing to encapsulate the full stupidity of the thought that something that had been hanging over them ever since the subject first came up could be reduced to 'doesn't matter.' "I don't get you at all. First you're mad I brought him up, now... what do you want me to do?"

"It doesn't," Doumeki repeated, for once not daring Watanuki to argue. After not being able to talk this out at all for so long, now he had too many answers. "It..." he tried, and gave up on words with a soft growl of frustration; so tired of Watanuki's sick attempts at compromise; tired of watching Watanuki wonder whether the person whose trust he wanted the most could be trusted himself and whether he cared at all, and Doumeki just needed to settle the matter for both of them before they managed to complicate all over again. Watanuki had spent most of the conversation avoiding eye contact, so when the hand landed on his shoulder he startled and looked up, to find Doumeki's solid presence suddenly very much inside his personal space. For that infinite moment when he realised what Doumeki was about to do, he didn't even seem to be breathing. Then Doumeki pulled him through the rest of the distance between them and kissed him. Not gently—there was a point to be made here.

Watanuki barely even got out a surprised gasp before he caught up, and the next instant he was kissing Doumeki back without the slightest hesitation, surprise or relief or whatever else he might have been feeling all lost in that first overwhelming surge. Neither of them knew quite how this was meant to work, not well enough to make it go as smoothly as it should have, but Watanuki seemed well beyond caring, and even Doumeki was barely aware of anything remotely amiss. It was only a moment more before Watanuki's arms were wrapping tight around his body, fingers tangling in the back of his shirt as if this strange new thing between them might escape him if he didn't cling to it with everything he had. The need and determination was startling—if anything, Doumeki had underestimated where this would take him; and there was a light, empty feeling in his gut before he'd even finished that thought, that made him feel almost selfish for having ownership of something Watanuki needed this badly.

It was several moments before Doumeki remembered how to pull away long enough to remove Watanuki's glasses from where they'd begun to scrape uncomfortably on both their noses, confident that whatever else happened next his point had been understood.

"Is this going to upset them?" he asked, on a whim that was maybe something a bit more.

"...what?" was the barely stuttered response.

"The ghosts. Is it going to make them angry if I do this?"

"What? Oh, _I_ don't know," said Watanuki, sounding breathless and catching up with him only slowly when it was still a bit early to be talking about this. "I haven't... I don't _think_ so. I don't see why, if you're not hurting me..."

"It'll do," said Doumeki, and kissed him again—and for once, Watanuki didn't argue, didn't question, arms tightening again like that contact was still the only thing he trusted making this experience real.

For the rest of that night, even for a second or two strung together, he hardly dared let go.


	18. Book 2-11

When Syaoran came to get them the following morning, they were curled up together on Doumeki's mattress, the sunbeams creeping through the half-boarded window already doing their share to pull them out of sleep. Syaoran had never quite gotten the idea of knocking.

"Oi, Shizuka," he called from the doorway, "Kurogane said to tell you you'll be late for this morning's hunt if you're not up soon." When he'd decided Doumeki looked awake enough to have heard the message, he vanished again almost as quickly as he'd appeared.

Watanuki went from sleep to embarrassment to a kind of horrified fascination within the space of about ten seconds. "Doesn't _anything_ phase him?" was the first thing he said that day.

"Not this," replied Doumeki, not exactly at his best himself at this time of the morning, despite all past practice. The task of disentangling himself from Watanuki was being complicated by the fact that his bed-mate was apparently lying on some part of his body that, against all logic, he couldn't immediately identify.

"But... he _knew_ we were..."

"Yes." Doumeki couldn't think of any reason to assume otherwise.

"Didn't he even..." Watanuki blathered on, hopelessly stuck on the subject of what a boy of Syaoran's nature would or wouldn't be expected to know about sex.

"He's always been an early riser," said Doumeki. "He's probably done the same with Kurogane and Fye before."

".... _them!?_ "

Doumeki gave an elaborate shrug to imply that what their older camp mates might or might not have ever done in the privacy of their own buildings wasn't any great concern of his.

"I was really quite happy not knowing that," Watanuki complained to him. Doumeki nearly did the shrug again, the stopped himself. He just didn't have much more to say on the subject.

"At least he didn't freak at us," Watanuki murmured.

"He's probably telling the others why we're late up right now," said Doumeki thoughtfully.

Watanuki buried is head in the pillow with a moan. "You're the one they want for the hunt. I'm staying here until they all forget about me."

"You'd prefer speculation about how much I wore you out?"

Watanuki gave another groan of slightly different tenor, and started groping for his clothes.

Doumeki paused in the hunt for his own clothes long enough to watch a sleepy Watanuki disentangling himself from the unfamiliar arrangement of blankets. He was barely less painfully skinny than he'd been the first day Doumeki had met him, and the scar from the bullet wound on his shoulder was still visible as an ugly, raised splotch, but the bruises that Doumeki remembered from the first time he'd seen Watanuki in a similar state of undress long ago, left as evidence of what he'd faced in the hands of his last gang, had long ago yellowed and faded away to leave only smooth, pale skin behind. It occurred to him he should be asking Watanuki how he was doing this morning, but he pushed the impulse away again. He could already tell.

"What are you looking at?" Watanuki complained over his shoulder.

"What do you think?" Doumeki had thought that too obvious to be worth hiding.

Watanuki turned away from him and reached for his shirt, grumbling about how they were both meant to be getting dressed and out of here before they made themselves any more late, but not before Doumeki caught the edge of an odd kind of smile on his face.

* * *

Kurogane wasn't the type for habits like pacing, but he was beginning to radiate impatience by the time Syaoran got back to where the others were waiting.

"They'll be a few more minutes," Syaoran reported. Lesser mortals might have been intimidated by Kurogane's expression, but the knowledge he'd followed instructions to the letter was enough for to rid Syaoran of all imagined responsibility.

"They were still in bed?" asked Sakura. "They're not usually up this late."

"Yeah, the same bed," reported Syaoran.

'Stunned and wide-eyed' did not do justice to Sakura's expression. She looked almost as though she'd swallowed her own mouth. "The... they were... when you _went in_...!?"

"Just sleeping," Syaoran corrected her. "Probably before though. Maybe that's why they slept in," he added, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.

" _Well!_ " said Fye, dragging the simple word out with a weight its single syllable should never have supported, and pairing it with a smile that suggested he'd heard nothing so fascinating all year. "Who would have thought?"

"Kimihiro and... Shizuka?" asked Kohane, curiously, looking from one person to the next. "They were...?"

"I don't know about 'were' but it certainly sounds a though they are now," said Fye, sounding immensely pleased.

"B... but that's good for them, isn't it?" Sakura stuttered out all in a rush, determined to have her input despite being bright red.

"Oh, absolutely!" Fye agreed. "Good for both of them. I wonder if they need any pointers...?" he mused, sneaking a glance at Kurogane.

"They'll be more grateful for some privacy," said Kurogane, glaring at him in a creative manner that allowed him to avoid looking Fye in the eye.

"Oh Kuro," Fye sighed, "why do you always have to ruin all my fun?" His eyes flickered to something over Kurogane's shoulder. "And here they are at last! Sleep well, boys?"

"Fine," said Doumeki, noncommittally. Watanuki looked flushed and a little too obviously trying to avoid looking directly at anyone, let alone Fye. Sakura suddenly found it very necessary to bustle around at twice her usual speed in order to serve the two boys their breakfast. Kurogane rolled his eyes and silently resolved not to bother talking anything out with Doumeki in future.

* * *

On the whole, Doumeki found there wasn't much reaction from the camp at large. Syaoran and Kurogane didn't seem to care one way or the other, and Sakura was determined to be happy for them. Fye doubtless had plenty to say on the subject, but hadn't yet had the chance to corner one or both of them long enough to share it, which was probably something he should be grateful while it lasted. The one remaining exception was Kohane. Doumeki had only thought about how she might react in the vaguest of terms, but when he found her hovering around after lunch that day, he couldn't find it in himself to be too surprised to see her.

"Yes?" he prompted, although he was fairly sure he knew the form of what she was going to say.

Kohane took another step around the corner of the building she'd been peering from behind to bring herself into full view and swallowed slightly. "They were saying... you and Kimihiro were... Um. Together?"

There wasn't any point in denying it. "Yeah. They weren't wrong."

"Should I have known before? The others didn't seem very surprised..."

"There's no reason you should have," Doumeki told her. He could have said more, about how new this was even to them, but couldn't decide how truthful that would be. Kohane wasn't blind or stupid; she'd understand that details were private. Instead, he added, "It doesn't mean he cares about you any less."

"I know," she replied, perfectly understanding. "I was just thinking, it must be nice to have something like that. I don't know whether I ever will."

"No-one knows before it happens," said Doumeki honestly. "It isn't something you can go looking for, or see coming. Or avoid." There was something familiar about the words as he uttered them that made him wonder whether he was repeating something he'd heard before. Had his grandfather ever brought up this subject with him? He couldn't remember for sure.

Kohane nodded solemnly. "I understand. And I am glad for him. He deserves to have something like that."

Doumeki could only agree. "He does."

* * *

Apart from that, not much changed. It didn't need to.

There had only ever been a couple of feet of space between Doumeki's mattress and Watanuki's, so shoving them together was no chore, though generally they both wound up on Doumeki's, until the warming weather started to make close contact less pleasant. Nothing in their daytime routine changed; there was no space or need for it to. Neither had much that needed to be said out loud on the subject of the change in their relationship, and Watanuki was still visibly hesitant about testing the waters of their new truce by saying any more than needed on the subject of his ghosts. He wouldn't initiate anything between them directly either, most of the time, but he did quickly develop a way of looking at Doumeki that was as good as saying, "Excuse me, _why_ are you still wearing clothes right now?" which was pretty much just as good.

The chief change was that the tension that had hung between them over the last few months was finally gone, and there was a more comfortable quality to the stillness between them than there had ever been before.

It occurred to Doumeki before long that their conversation that night about the ghosts hadn't been quite finished when they ended it, but whatever might have been left to be said, there was no urgency to it. The subject was destined to come up again eventually when Watanuki was feeling more comfortable with their new situation, but there was plenty of time.

As for Watanuki himself, the strangest part was waking up in the morning and not having to remind himself everything was different. If he didn't stop to analyse, this felt so natural and inevitable that it was surprising to think he had any reason to be surprised about it at all.

When he'd gotten over his initial period of ground-shaking disorientation with the strangeness of the new camp, it had struck him as bizarre how much of everything he did went through Doumeki, one way or another. He'd realised before long that it was because Doumeki had been assigned to keep an eye on him, then later he'd realised that didn't apply anymore now he'd been at the camp for so long, then it had occurred to him it was probably just habit leftover from his earlier days, then he'd gone on to realise it was all just down to how dependent on Doumeki he'd let himself become. At various other stages, he'd also realised that the attraction was bound to be no more than a reaction to Doumeki's resistance to evil spirits, that it had started well before he'd consciously realised Doumeki was doing that at all, that it was all a need to cling to anything strong enough to take care of him, that that couldn't be right because he'd never needed anything like that before, that _that_ was irrelevant too because he'd never been _offered_ anything like this before; that it was all some twisted sort of Stockholm Syndrome where he'd been ripe to latch on to the first person who was even remotely nice to him—and a dozen other back-and-forths along those lines, none of which ever lasted long as a remotely satisfying explanation for why the thought a day might come when he never saw Doumeki again left him breathless and sore in a way no beating he'd ever received could compare to.

He'd never got as far as wondering seriously whether Doumeki might be just as attached to _him_.

If he let himself think about it too long, he could never come to any other conclusion than that it couldn't possibly be real, but if it was a dream, it was all he could do to keep himself from waking up as long as possible.

Just maybe, if he could go on long enough, perhaps he could forget how to wake up at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there, we endeth Book 2.


	19. Book 3-1

Beyond the borders of their tiny camp the fallout from the destruction of the Complex was far from over. Rumour spread far and fast, apparently needing no medium but the wind. When the same travelling traders who'd first brought them the rumour of the April Fool returned to Kurogane's camp again, they left armed with the most exciting story to reach their ears in years. However, barely a fortnight passed before they were back again, seeking new details after discovering that the story had overtaken them, and people now wanted _new_ news and answers they didn't have. Little, unfortunately, was on offer, until the other Complexes' response finally showed itself.

So isolated were the ruins, and so unprecedented the scale of the disaster, that the Complex's teams had taken weeks to make the full journey—only now had they at last begun to arrive. The Complexes had not responded by halves—convoys of armoured trucks dwarfing even the vehicle the Diet Building had sent on the reverse journey earlier that year were sighted converging on the ruins from multiple directions. Not since the first days After had there been so much traffic, nor any event so mysterious and terrible to attract attention to this part of the country, and it made everyone up to the leaders of the two local superpowers nervous. Never before had Kurogane's camp received regular visitors _asking_ for news they didn't yet have, but now Kamui and Fuuma wanted reports almost by the day.

These were difficult questions to answer without revealing more than Kurogane's camp would prefer. Try as they might to keep Chi safe and secret, any fool who heard a fraction of the news they distributed could have guessed that their source originated at the Complexes themselves. Fuuma asked Doumeki point blank whether the destruction of their nearest Complex was going to cause a 'problem' for them where future weather reports were concerned. When Doumeki said no, he went on to point out that lying to create a false sense of security in a valued customers who would be _very_ disappointed if they got hit by an acid storm without warning could be _awfully_ bad for community relations in the area. Doumeki told him they had nothing to lie about. He didn't much like the smile Fuuma gave him after that, or the declaration of how pleased the Tower's leader was that the news was so good, but at least he wasn't asked any more questions on the matter. Fuuma seemed satisfied that if there was any problem, it wasn't going to be his.

The simple fact was that after the first burst of panic there wasn't much news to be heard on the channels about the tragedy. Every natural disaster from earthquake to meteor strike had been ruled out as a cause early on, and after that the Complexes had halted open discussion very quickly. If they were still talking about it at all (which seemed more likely than not) then the administrators were exchanging their theories in messages so heavily encrypted that even Fye hadn't found a way to decipher them. Until the people in charge had an explanation they liked, the investigation had become top secret.

Kamui for one wasn't satisfied with that explanation.

"You've heard nothing more?" he asked testily. Doumeki wasn't sure whether he was being accused of deliberately withholding information or not trying hard enough to get it, but either way it was trying his patience.

"We don't make the news," he said. "We can only pass on what comes our way."

"Then you believe the Complexes are hiding the truth of the matter even from your sources?" Kamui suggested.

"It's more likely they don't have an answer yet themselves. The vehicles they sent would only just have arrived..." there Doumeki hesitated, because Kamui was giving him a look of surprise, even disdain.

"Are you labouring under the belief their agents have only just reached the ruin now? They were there weeks ago, within days of the event."

Doumeki frowned. "How? For them to travel that fast..."

"They came in flying machines," said Kamui. "Wasteful technology from a past age; even the Complexes do not use such things lightly. You had not heard? They passed over Diet Building territory weeks ago."

"...We hadn't," was all Doumeki could say in reply. Flying machines... it sounded so crazy that if he'd heard it from many other sources he would have dismissed it as ridiculous. Such creations were the stuff of old legend—and automatically suspect since the only person he'd heard of them from was Fye. The communications Chi had intercepted had implied the people sending them had a fair knowledge of the site, but there'd been nothing about flying machines, and if Ryu-ou or any other trader had come by the news, they'd taken it away with them without bothering to share it with their nearest customers.

"They have had plenty of time to investigate," said Kamui. "I find it unlikely they'd send in so many men as were on those vehicles if they weren't satisfied with the answer they had. The risk they run if the danger remained would be too great. But still you tell me they have no answer to announce?"

"Or they're hiding the answer they have," Doumeki added. He didn't like where this was going. "Have you been investigating the ruin yourselves?"

"What sort of fool do you take me for?" Kamui snapped. "One of their Complexes was destroyed a mere day's travel from Diet Building territory. How do you expect they would interpret anything we did that left a direct trail from the ruin back to our base?"

This was a possibility that had barely occurred to Doumeki, but now the point had been raised it did seem obvious—terribly so. "You're worried the Diet Building will be blamed."

"I cannot account for how those in the Complexes may think, but in their position it is what I would assume. If the cause was not natural and no accident, then attack by the Diet Building or the Tower would be the next most obvious theory."

"It's possible," Doumeki had to agree.

"If that is what they conclude, there is even the possibility they are deliberately hiding it from this 'source' of yours. Ever since that trading mission—which we undertook at your instigation—you must admit it likely they know we have access to some part of the news they exchange."

Doumeki remembered Oruha's reaction to the list of trade items they'd so faithfully reproduced. It was difficult to answer questions like these without giving too much away, but the simple truth of the matter was, "We can't rule it out."

"Then you see why we are so desperate for any news that may come our way."

"If we hear anything at all, we'll let you know," was all Doumeki could think to say in response.

"I will be counting on that," said Kamui darkly, not the least satisfied by anything that had passed in that day's discussion.

Doumeki had plenty to think about on his journey home, but the thought he kept returning to was that sharing Kamui's perspective with Watanuki would not be pleasant. What they knew of Kohane's involvement in the ruin of Complex wasn't strictly the sort of news they were obligated to pass on, but neglecting to mention it—even after Kamui had asked so directly—was a definite lie of omission. With the matter of the ruined Complex becoming political, it was an omission Watanuki would feel all the more keenly responsible for.

"None of them from the Complexes... have any idea about Kohane, do they?" Watanuki asked awkwardly when the tale was done (which had been every bit as unenjoyable a task as predicted). He'd taken the news as well as could be expected, but he was avoiding eye contact again. It was a hard habit to break him out of, and at moments like this it came back full force.

"No," Doumeki assured him. "Nothing we've heard has mentioned her, or whatever project she was part of. There shouldn't be anything left behind to lead them to her here."

"But they're looking for her, aren't they?" said Watanuki. "Even if they don't realise that's what they're doing. It's important to them that they find out what destroyed the Complex, or they can't know it won't happen again. And if they don't find the real reason it could mean they decide it was the Diet Building or the Tower even though that's completely wrong, and..."

"Do you want to tell them about her?" Doumeki asked, cutting him off. He wasn't personally very clear on the subject of how Kohane had been involved. Everything he'd heard about it had been blurted out in that one conversation with Watanuki, at a time when he'd had more important things on the forefront of his mind. Given his position he wasn't sure he had either the right or the means to understand it in full, but for this much he didn't need to.

"Of course not," Watanuki protested. "But I can't help _wondering_..."

"It wouldn't make any difference even if we did tell them," said Doumeki. "You'd never make them believe you."

Watanuki snuck out a look that suggested he suspected he was being told patronising half-truths, but most of the nerves drained out of him. He took a step forward and slumped so that his forehead rested on Doumeki's shoulder. One of Doumeki's hands drifted up in response to rest at the base of his neck. This was a physically demonstrative as Watanuki would ever let himself be, and it meant a lot.

"Thanks," Watanuki said softly.

"It was only the truth," said Doumeki automatically, and hoped he'd meant it.

"So? Truth takes any shape you think the other person deserves to hear," Watanuki muttered, without moving away. "I did mean it when I said thankyou."

Doumeki gave the back of his neck one last reassuring squeeze and stepped back to make Watanuki face him. "Come on. It's almost dinner time. I'll need to tell the others about this too."

Watanuki nodded reluctantly and followed him out.

* * *

The story didn't go down much better with the others. Doumeki's account of the main points of the conversation he'd had with Kamui was met with uncomfortable silence.

"But... but the Diet Building and the Tower didn't have anything to do with it, did they?" said Sakura anxiously, the first to voice her thoughts.

"Kamui knows they're innocent. Why would he be so worried?" Syaoran agreed. Kohane stared down at her hands in her lap in silence, her meal untouched.

"Ah, if only the world were so perfect that the innocent were never punished!" Fye sighed. "But Kamui isn't wrong to be nervous. The investigators the Complex sent won't rest until they find an explanation, and if there's no evidence to be found and someone important just happens to come up with the idea that the Tower or the Diet Building have been up to no good, then they might convince themselves of anything, just so that they have an answer."

"The Complexes have ignored the larger camps around here in the past, but the thought of anyone outside their borders amassing the kind of manpower and reputation that our neighbours have must be a concern to them," said Kurogane. "They've shown no mercy to gangs that threatened them before. The only reason that ever stopped is because no-one's dared challenge them in a long time."

"Then they might really decide to attack the Diet Building just because they don't know what really happened?" Syaoran gasped.

"Well, only if they like the idea of going to war against a gang they believe has the means to ruin a Complex without leaving a trace," Fye pointed out.

"Do you think it was a mistake to make that trading trip?" said Doumeki. "We've drawn their attention to the Tower and the Diet Building. Given them more reason than ever to suspect someone out here was a way of listening in on their transmissions, too."

"I doubt it," said Kurogane. "The opposite is more likely. If anyone near here had the means to destroy a Complex and plunder its corpse, they wouldn't waste weeks travelling to trade for supplies. We may have done everyone a favour."

"I don't think the risk could be very high," said Fye thoughtfully. "Those investigators would have to look very hard indeed to find evidence the Complex came under attack?" The question was aimed at Doumeki and Watanuki, still the only ones in their number to have seen the place—save Kohane herself.

"It looked to me like the damage came from inside," said Doumeki. Privately, he hoped Watanuki wasn't going to start fidgeting too obviously under the weight of repressed secrets.

"Then it's more likely they'll decide it was some kind of accident. An equipment malfunction, maybe. Perhaps even a deliberate act of sabotage, though it would take a lot to prove it."

"Sabotage?" Syaoran frowned at the unfamiliar word. "That's... like when you tamper with someone else's bike so it doesn't work, right?"

"More or less, though this is a much bigger scale," Fye replied.

"But who could do something like that?"

"Only someone from the inside could get access, but it would take a true madman who loathed the Complexes beyond all reason to do such a thing deliberately. And as I understand it, they've started screening everyone inside for any sign of the crazies frequently and thoroughly in the last couple of years since I left," said Fye, adding the last almost like an afterthought, thought it got him a look from Kurogane of an unusually shrewd variety.

"They've had investigators there for weeks now," said Doumeki. "If the explanation were that simple, wouldn't they have announced it?"

"Perhaps not," said Fye. "Not until they knew what the accident was and were thoroughly certain it wouldn't happen again; or until they caught the saboteur. The last thing they'd want to do would be to tell people they had a weakness so critical."

"Um," said Kohane suddenly. "Do you think any of them will notice I'm gone?" Nervously, she looked up a little to find all eyes turned on her, Watanuki looking downright worried by what she might say. This was the first and only thing she'd said all meal.

"Unlikely," said Kurogane dismissively. "I doubt your body will be the only one they don't find and identify."

"But... they'll be trying to find out what people were doing right before the disaster, won't they? There's ways of getting information off even damaged computers..."

"Oh, up to a point," said Fye. "All depends on the damage—and the computer. But you can be certain nothing they've got stored there will tell them where you went."

"They won't easily trace you back here," Kurogane agreed. "When the boys went to pick you up, they moved too fast and too carefully to leave any trail."

"It would make more sense to assume you'd wandered off into the deadlands and collapsed somewhere," Doumeki put in.

"And... and the deadlands are so big that if they think you're lost out there they don't bother looking for you!" Sakura blurted all at once, an uncharacteristic kind of authority lurking behind her eyes.

"So, even if they think she got out of the Complex they'll think she's dead, right?" Syaoran concluded.

"You all have such a nice way of putting it," Watanuki grumbled faintly. Kohane looked around the ring one last time, finding the same answer behind all the gruff words spoken, and nodded once, letting herself give a small smile as she turned her face back to the meal in front of her.

At the time, it all sounded so very reasonable that no-one questioned a word.

* * *

That was all the warning they got. In the last twenty-four hours before it happened, Chi picked up nothing of note whatsoever—not so much as a suspicious burst of static, or even an inexplicably long silence. Chatter between the Complexes went on over the airwaves, apparently as normal.

Much as on the day when Watanuki had joined them, Doumeki was out on his bike, on an errand of no unusual importance, when he heard the sound of an engine like none he'd ever heard before. Stranger still, the sound had no clear direction, reverberating through the earth around it as if coming from everywhere at once. Only belatedly did Doumeki realise the sound came from above, and even then he may well have written it off as an aural illusion had he not heard Kamui's tale of flying machines scant days before. When he looked up at last, two long, dark shapes were moving across the sky overhead. Their forms tapered towards their tails and the blur of moving machine parts was visible overhead, but there were no wings—they looked like nothing that should have been fit to fly. The sense of wonder lasted exactly as long as it took him to identify in which direction they were headed. Somehow, that was all it took—right from that moment, Doumeki already knew.

He was still ten minutes away from the camp when he kicked the bike up to its fastest speed and went roaring for home. It would be one of those journeys in which every minute of took forever, and at once lasted no time at all.

The flying machines had vanished from sight well before Doumeki arrived. He found them again when the camp came into view, both landed just outside the security fence. The fence itself had been ripped asunder as though no stronger than chicken-wire, leaving a wide, open gash as a pathway to the camp within, the edges of the torn metal still crackling with the high voltage current that ran through the wires. Now that they were landed, the huge scale of the machines revealed against familiar grounded objects, he could see that both sported giant, three-spoked propellers from their roofs. Gaping hatches in their sides opened onto portable ramps leading down to the ground. More than a dozen well-armed men stood scattered on both sides of the wounded fence, all dressed in the close fitting armour and helmets that Doumeki was unsurprised to recognise from his visit to the far-off Complex on the trading mission earlier that year. In a strange flash he found himself wondering whether the faces of Kazuhiko and Gingetsu were inside any of those helmets, and the sense of betrayal—even from an acquaintance that has lasted no more than a few uneasy hours—burned in his chest like a sudden flame.

Doumeki knew then he had made it back too late—but almost in the same thought came the dull awareness that even had he never gone out at all, his presence here could scarcely have made much difference. Whatever had happened here in the few minutes it had taken him to return was already over—the troops were leaving. Two of the men were carrying an unconscious comrade as they climbed back up the ramp, but Doumeki scarcely noticed them when behind, two more were escorting a figure who wore none of their armour.

It was Watanuki.

He was unhurt, at least not visibly, but his eyes were lowered towards the earth before him, his whole posture such a picture of such unconditional submission that even the soldiers who were kept guard behind him had their guns halfway lowered, assured there was no fight left in their captive. If not for the sound of Doumeki's bike approaching, he probably would not have looked up once until he'd reached the gangplank, and even when he did the movement was so dull and slow it was difficult to imagine he'd expected to see anything of note at all.

When he laid eyes on Doumeki everything changed. A hundred different things may have flashed across his face in the moment when he registered who was there—it was terribly clear then that Watanuki had resigned himself to being stolen away yet again without so much as a chance to say goodbye. But what finally settled on his face was the look of the utmost paralysing terror, worse than Doumeki seen in his eyes since the day they met. It wasn't the soldiers that had scared him, or the uncertain fate before him, or even Doumeki himself—instead, in that moment, Doumeki saw that what had sent Watanuki into this state was the thought that the frustrating idiot he'd so foolishly allowed himself to grow to care about was _not going to let this happen_ —that he, Doumeki, would fight for him to the very last, that he'd get himself killed for the sake of a freedom that couldn't be won.

And Doumeki would have done it. There and then, even against unsurmountable odds, something hardened within him and made him realise he truly would have fought, no matter how hopeless it was—against every last man he could lay hands on, with whatever strength he had left. If what had scared Watanuki so much had been anything _but_ the fear that Doumeki was about to die for his sake, he very well may have fought to the death, for nothing more than the crime they'd committed by making Watanuki look that way.

But with that terrible plea on Watanuki's face, that action had become the one thing he couldn't possibly do.

Doumeki hardly heard the voices of the soldiers, yelling at him to drop his weapon. Even as he complied and let his gun fall to the ground in front of him, it was certainly not their demands that compelled him.

The relief in Watanuki's face when he saw Doumeki had surrendered was unmistakable, but it didn't last. Far worse was a new emotion Doumeki had not even been able to see in Watanuki's eyes until now—that had been so masked and overwhelmed by the first greater fear that perhaps even Watanuki had not been aware of it before, though it must have been with him on some level all along.

This one, as beautifully contradictory as any human emotion, was the fear Doumeki would do exactly what Watanuki's eyes had begged him to: stand down and simply let him go.

It was the last thing Doumeki would see on Watanuki's face before the hatchway closed behind him, the great propellers began to rotate until they whipped up a gale like a storm and the two machines lifted back into the sky.

There was nothing left in Doumeki but consuming numbness as he watched the machines fly away.

* * *

The camp Doumeki returned to seemed at first to have fallen utterly silent. He found Fye almost by stumbling on to him, sitting hunched over himself on the ledge that jutted from the wall on the far side of the lab building. Beyond, Syaoran lay unmoving on the ground, eyes closed and body sprawled as though he'd fallen straight down where he was standing, Kurogane leaning over him. Doumeki's appearance around the corner got a sharp look from Kurogane, a flicker of recognition from Fye, and not a blink from Syaoran. There was no-one else in sight.

"What happened?" Doumeki heard himself ask. It seemed the most inadequate question he could have voiced.

Fye gave a rough sob. "They've taken the girls." He rocked forward once and back again, speaking to himself almost as much as to Doumeki. "All our dear girls..." In one of his hands, Doumeki saw he was clutching a torn, bare wire by a portion still covered by protective casing. He didn't seem to know what to do with it.

"Watanuki's gone too," said Doumeki. The name felt dry in his throat. Fye gave another helpless sob and turned a little towards Kurogane.

"This one's still breathing," Kurogane reported. "He shouldn't be out too long." There was a cut above his eye that was oozing blood, and Doumeki could already see that Kurogane was using his left arm much less than usual. Syaoran, by contrast, had no obvious injuries. Fye looked back down at the wire in his hands again—an automatic gesture, and Doumeki found himself having a useless flash of insight into what must have transpired in the camp in the minutes it had taken him to return.

"It was electrocution?" he guessed.

"What else could I have done?" Fye declared helplessly, moving shakily to his feet and absently brandishing the offending wire, still grasped in his hands like a smoking gun. "He wouldn't stop fighting! He'd never have stopped once he realised they meant to take his Sakura away! Not even when they'd riddled him with bullets and torn him limb from limb, not even if she begged him to stop!"

"You weren't in the wrong," said Kurogane, also getting to his feet. "There was nothing else any of us could have done."

"Oh, but you should have seen our boys fight," said Fye, addressing Doumeki and finally throwing the wire to his feet, though not so carelessly that there was any danger the end would land on anyone. "They were magnificent, right to the last—even outnumbered and outgunned. Why, they took down five men between them before they were subdued!" He gave a weak laugh. "But it was hopeless from the first!"

The man Doumeki had seen being carried into the machine must have been the last of those five. It was too late now for even the news that the others had fought to inspire any more guilt in Doumeki that he'd chosen not to do likewise, but the weight of his failure to do anything to protect Watanuki settled all the heavier.

"This was no random raid. They were prepared," said Kurogane, dull proclamation. "They knew exactly what they'd find here. Exactly who they were looking for. The three of them who see ghosts were what they were after. Chi as well."

"How?" asked Doumeki. Fye just shook his head.

"Chi," said Kurogane, "Is it possible they found a way to trace..."

"Oh come now, Kuro-dear," Fye interrupted, "now is a poor time for you to pretend to forget you ever learned the difference between input and output. Chi has never been more than a passive receiver—she _has_ no transmission circuits I've not disabled. They could no more have traced her here than... than you could speak with your ears!"

There was silence between the three of them for a while.

"What about Kohane?" Doumeki suggested. "Could we have been wrong that they wouldn't find a way to track her?"

"Even if they did, that doesn't account for how they knew about the others," said Kurogane. "No-one outside the camp knew Sakura was here. Since she joined she's hardly set foot outside."

"Watanuki should be the same," said Doumeki, feeling in one of those unjustifiable ways that it was something that needed to be said. "How could the Complexes have known so much?"

Fye threw up his hands. "Who knows indeed! They're the _Complexes_ , they've all manner of tools at their disposal of the likes you've never seen. I could spin you a dozen different possible stories of how they might have achieved a magic trick like this, each as unlikely as the last. Two dozen!"

"None of those troops gave away any hint," said Kurogane darkly. "There's no way for us to know."

It would be every bit as hopeless to ask 'why'. All they had left were practicalities.

"What do we do now?" asked Doumeki.

"Why, we'll all go charging into the Complex like avenging angels on pure white steeds and rescue them all, sweeping every one of those nasty soldiers aside in our path!" said Fye, gesturing dramatically. "What do you think we can do?"

Kurogane hesitated, wrestling with some unspoken portion of his thoughts even in the face of Fye's irreverence. "Even if that would work, we'd have to find them. There are enough Complexes in this part of the country that..." but again, Fye cut him off.

"Isn't the time passed for this kind of obfuscation, Kurogane? You know as well as I do where they'll have been taken."

Doumeki looked between the two of them, aware there was something more going on than he had the means to understand, but little able to muster interest in personal details when so much more was at stake.

Kurogane gave Fye a long glare, but finally gave in. "It's going to be the same one I let us go to trade with. The one where everything began."

There was another dangerous silence, during which neither of the adults looked away.

"Do you blame me for this?" asked Kurogane at last.

Fye sighed. "No more than I have to. No more than I blame you for bringing us all together, and giving us company we'd care for enough to miss, and somewhere homelike enough that we'd stay long enough to be tracked down; for giving us anything worth having in this horrible world, where nothing good can last. No more than we all blame ourselves for not being able to stop it from happening."

"Do you blame Watanuki?" Doumeki heard himself ask. The other two turned back to him as though they'd almost forgotten he'd been there.

"There's no help in blaming him," said Kurogane. "We've no more reason to think him responsible than Chi, or the trading mission, or anything else."

"I suppose you can't help but wonder," said Fye, with a strange understanding. "He's been here so long now that you stop thinking about these things, but so much would be different if we hadn't let him join. But even you'd known what might follow, would you have changed your mind about bringing him home?"

It wasn't a simple question. If Doumeki had known only that Watanuki might attract the attention of the Complex to their camp, then he would have left him where he'd been found, no question at all. But if he'd known everything that would follow... it was difficult to say what he would have decided.

Fye was right. There was no help wondering about it. What might have happened didn't matter anymore.

Behind them, Syaoran coughed weakly, and the whole subject was quickly abandoned. Kurogane dropped back into a crouch by his side. Syaoran coughed once more and tried to sit up, managing to prop himself up high enough to look around despite wincing all the way through the process.

"You shouldn't try to get up too quickly," Kurogane warned. "You've been unconscious for several minutes." He might as well have told the rain to stay in the clouds.

"What happened?" Syaoran asked, voice gradually steadying as he looked between the three remaining camp members who surrounded him. "Where... where's Sakura? What...?"

The way none of them would meet his eyes was answer enough.

"Sakura!" Syaoran cried again and launched himself to his feet. He made it that far only to sway back under a wave of nausea and pain, caught himself barely on the lab building wall and staggered forward, through nothing more than shear determination battling a condition that should have left anyone else bedridden for at least the rest of the day. Kurogane's hand landed heavily on his shoulder before he could go another step, and the weight nearly threw Syaoran over sideways. Again he held his balance, barely.

"I told you, you're in no condition to stand. Or fight," said Kurogane.

"You... let go of me!" Syaoran shook Kurogane's hand off him with surprising force. "Sakura... Sakura was taken by them, and you... you _let_ them take her! None of you even tried..."

"It wouldn't have mattered how hard we'd fought, we wouldn't have won," said Kurogane. "You saw how many there were."

"But they came here looking for Sakura!" Syaoran protested once more as if that simple fact could negate all logic that came before. To his mind, it surely did. "You could at least have tried! You're useless cowards, all of you..."

There Syaoran stopped completely, because Kurogane had punched him across the face. Weak and battered as the boy was, the blow connected hard enough to send him sprawling back to the earth, unfit to do anything that would break his fall. He looked up at Kurogane again from the ground, face a mask of betrayal and shock.

The moment over, Kurogane looked as passive as he ever had. "Do you think she would thank you for dying for her? Didn't you hear what she was crying out to you as you fought? She was as scared for you as you for her. Did you want to leave her the rest of her life blaming herself for your death? Don't imagine you're the only one who lost someone they cared about today."

Syaoran looked down and away, chastised at last. Kurogane went on speaking.

"If I let you up now, what are you going to do? The place they're being taken is many weeks journey away on foot, and more heavily guarded than the Tower. Even if you made it there it would be hopeless for you."

"What are we going to do?" Syaoran asked quietly, his voice cracking with the effort of those words. "Isn't there anything...?"

"I don't know," replied Kurogane. "Nothing like this has ever happened before. But I won't tell you to give up yet, and if you still want to die for her, you'll have your chance."


	20. Book 3-2

Watanuki would later remember very little of the flight except the uncomfortable impression of the square-edged bench he'd been told to sit on, the deafening roar of the engines and the rare glimpse of the areal landscape through the windows he didn't dare look at any more closely. For the first hour he felt nothing but sick relief.

Hadn't he always known this was going to happen—his inevitable capture by another gang? Kurogane's camp had never been large enough to defend him for long—and at long last, he'd actually been taken by a gang so big he'd never be fought over again. Not unless other Complexes decided to fight over him, and that didn't sound like how they did that sort of thing. The important thing was that, for the first time ever, he'd been taken without bloodshed. No-one one had died for him—Doumeki—and all the others—they'd all survive—and that was better than anything he'd ever dreamed he'd have. The relief of just knowing that was almost more than he could stand.

Then, over the next hour of the flight, Watanuki slowly came apart at the seams. He'd been taken by a Complex—an actual _Complex_. He'd never heard or even dreamed of anything so crazy. And it wasn't just him, it was Kohane and Sakura too—the two people who had the most reason to fear the place they were going, and now Syaoran had lost Sakura, and Fye had lost Chi—and they'd never see them again and it was all Watanuki's fault—it _had_ to be his actions that attracted the Complex there. And the others might have survived so far but it would be naïve to assume they could stay that way. Doumeki wasn't going to let him go. The idiot still thought he was invincible—he'd do something crazy like run off on a rescue mission, and Syaoran would go just as crazy without Sakura, and they'd both get themselves killed. Even if Fye and Kurogane still had the sense to stay behind, without Chi to retrieve the weather reports, they'd be useless to their landlords, and without that bargaining chip, how long would they be allowed to survive?

They were all doomed—all because of him.

And even if they pulled through somehow, he'd never see Doumeki or any of the others ever again.

* * *

It had been an unusually busy year for news.

Kamui was expecting them well before they arrived—had been ever since his last conversation in which he'd impressed on Doumeki how important he felt it was that certain news which they might come by in the future was delivered quickly. Their real reason for visiting today was not what he'd expected, and that wouldn't improve his mood or make the job in front of them any easier. However, when they brought the bike to a stop he did not ask whether they'd brought him the news he wanted, nor did he offer any comment on the oddity of seeing Kurogane and Doumeki dismounting from the bike in Diet Building territory. On the other hand, maybe it was the look in Kurogane's eyes that kept him in watchful silence. Whatever the case, on a visit made in the name of the most outlandish request they ever had to ask for, it was left to them to make the first move.

"We're here to ask a favour," said Kurogane.

"I suppose it was too much to expect that the news I had been waiting for would have reached us so soon," said Kamui. "The Diet Building is not in the habit of granting favours."

"We're not in the habit of asking for them," said Kurogane. "This isn't a request for charity. We'll be in your debt," he ground his teeth, not enjoying the idea, "for as long as it takes us to pay it back."

Kamui looked from Kurogane to Doumeki and back again, unconvinced. Kurogane had not said 'assuming we live that long' aloud, but something in his tone had managed to imply it.

"We've done enough trade with you in the past for you to know we can make good on it," said Doumeki. "This isn't something we'd be asking if we had another way."

Kamui continued to glare at them, but replied, "You may as well explain what kind of favour it is you expect."

"We need transport to a Complex," said Kurogane. "The same one we went to trade with before. No cargo, but we need to get there fast."

"Fast," Kamui echoed skeptically.

"If we arrived an hour from now, we'd already be late," said Doumeki.

"That's a very big request," observed Kamui, "and a strange one."

"We know."

"Doubtless you'd consider this none of my business," said Kamui, "but that is a lot to ask of me with no guarantee of compensation, nor a word of explanation as to why. I have already expressed my feelings on the thought of drawing the Complex's attention to ourselves at this time, and I gather that there's no treasure to be bought or won there, or you would have offered us a share as your price."

"Nothing we can share, no."

"Then what business can you possibly have at such a place?"

Neither of them spoke.

"The tale is yours to withhold. Likewise, the favour you ask is mine to withhold if I am not satisfied as to its purpose."

"Men from that Complex stole something of ours," said Kurogane. "We mean to get it back."

"Your answer raises only more questions," said Kamui severely. "Even were that true, what could possibly have been taken from you that you feel you have any hope of retrieving?"

"Our weather reporting system, for one thing," said Doumeki. He could feel Kurogane's eyes on him as soon as he'd said it. This was a gamble that had never even been discussed—the circumstances that would justify revealing the truth behind the source of the 'news' that had allowed them to live under the protection of the two most feared powers in the country. It was a great liberty Doumeki was taking, by making that decision of his own accord while their camp's leader was only a pace away, but it was too late to turn back now.

At least he had Kamui surprised enough to keep listening. "Explain yourself."

"The system is a computer which allowed us to intercept transmissions between the Complexes, including their weather reports," said Doumeki. He'd only confuse issues now by referring to Chi as a 'she'. "That's what has been taken. Three of our people were kidnapped as well."

"This computer," said Kamui thoughtfully, "cannot simply be rebuilt?"

"We'd never find the parts a second time," said Kurogane. "If we can't get that one back, that's it."

"Grave news," said Kamui. "So my incentive to help you is two-fold—the loss of any future warning that the acid storms have returned on one hand, and the debt of a favour on the other. None of which begins to explain what makes you imagine you will be able retrieve anything from a foe so great as a Complex." The last part came out much sharper, and every bit as skeptical as it deserved to be.

"We know it's a long shot," Kurogane replied, which should have been an understatement, but coming from his mouth it sounded like no more than the simple truth, "but there's no hope if we don't go at all."

"And should you never return, any favours owed to us are no longer your concern. How convenient for you."

"We don't plan on..." Doumeki started.

"Enough," Kamui silenced him. "In any case, this talk is meaningless. I am sorry," and for once, Doumeki believed he truly was, "but no matter what effort you make to convince me I should aid you, there's nothing in the possession of the Diet Building that would allow you to travel so far or so fast. We can do nothing to help you."

With a proclamation like that, there was nothing left for them to do but get back on the bike and move on.

"Wait," said Kamui when they were just about to go. He didn't look pleased about whatever he had left to say, but he never looked exactly happy about anything much. "Tell Fuuma," (the name crunched out like something he found indigestible) "if he is able and willing to provide you with what you need, I will consider _that_ incident repaid."

Doumeki couldn't imagine what Kamui was talking about, but he clearly wasn't meant to. "You would do that?"

"I'm no fool," said Kamui. "If there is any chance you may retrieve your computer and return, it's in no interest of ours to see you more in the Tower's debt than our own."

"We'll remember that," Kurogane pulled the bike away.

* * *

Fuuma treated their story with a good deal more interest and a good deal less attention, so as to almost suggest he'd already heard it. With Fuuma, it was never safe to be too sure one way or the other.

"It's a lot you're asking of us, for a favour you may never have the chance to repay," he mused, closer to smiling than should have been fair. "Not an easy thing to ask us to send you so far so quickly. Life wouldn't be easy for you without this computer here, would it? So even if you fail, you haven't much to lose, yet all we have is a debt that will never be repaid. Quite a gamble."

This was not surprising, they'd known he'd be difficult about it. Odds were this was all bluster and he'd already decided whether to help them our not, but this was their cue to put any remaining cards they might have on the table.

"We have a message from Kamui," said Kurogane. "If you can help us, he'll consider what he referred to as 'that incident' repaid."

"Really?" said Fuuma, with rising interest. "Now what on earth did you say to our Kamui to convince him to do that?"

"Only what we've told you."

"Well, that does shift the balance," said Fuuma, now definitely smiling. "Perhaps there is some assistance we could lend you on this occasion..."

* * *

Doumeki was not a very huggable person and even Yuzuriha could appreciate that, but the greeting she gave him still projected the intent of a hug in its enthusiasm if not in its substance.

"Doumeki! Wow, it feels like it's been ages and ages, how've you been? Have you caught up with anyone from the Diet Building lately? Heard from Kusanagi at all?" She waved enthusiastically and grinned from ear to ear. The oddity of him and Kurogane being inside the Tower did not appear to have occurred to her.

"Not since I last saw you," said Doumeki, choosing to avoid the rest of the questions. Yuzuriha's disappointment was very mild, and Doumeki hazarded a guess that she'd heard from Kusanagi herself far more recently than that, relations between their camps notwithstanding.

The Tower, befitting its name, towered over them. The thought he'd ever find himself standing at its feet had never seriously occurred to Doumeki—the Tower might as well have belonged to another country for all that it was accessible to outsiders. No-one stood a chance of getting close without an invitation, and until today, invitations had been unheard of. Fuuma could just as easily have made them wait at the boundary while whatever was needed for transport was fetched from within (as had been the norm on every visit they'd ever made in the past), or had them blindfolded or tied up like prisoners, but he'd lead them in as casually as if this was a regular event. Quite possibly, he wanted to impress on them just how little threat he felt they posed.

Fuuma patted Inuki's head by way of greeting Yuzuriha himself, a gesture that was tolerated as though the recipient had no particular opinion on it either way. "Well then, Yuzuriha, how would you feel about making another trip to that Complex we sent you to before?"

"Another visit?" echoed Yuzuriha. "Are we trading with them again?"

"No, not this time, but our guests here are going to need some rather speedier transport in that direction."

Yuzuriha took only a second to catch on to whatever it was Fuuma was asking from her. "Oh! So Doumeki, you and your friend are both going there again? That's..."

"There's two more back at our camp who'll be coming with us," said Kurogane before she could go further. "We intend for there to be another four on the way back, three of them children."

"Hm..." murmured Yuzuriha, locked for a second in mental calculations. "That should still be fine, though we'll have to sit tandem and go slower on the way back with all that weight. So when do we need to leave?"

"I understood," Fuuma replied without so much as a look at Doumeki or Kurogane, "that our guests wanted to get there as quickly as possible."

"Right away then!" Yuzuriha announced, throwing a sloppy salute, eager for the chance to drop mundane chores in the name of an adventure. "Can we get some of the others to pack us some supplies? We shouldn't need much." After Fuuma's answering nod she turned back to their guests. "Do you want to come up and see the eyrie before we go? If you don't mind a few stairs, that is."

Doumeki and Kurogane exchanged glances, but neither had any more useful insights than the other

"Sure," said Doumeki. It seemed like the sort of time to go with the flow.

* * *

Although the Tower was one of the rare structures which had miraculously withstood both the disaster that had levelled the city around it and the weather in the years since, it had never been a structure design to live in. The numerous residents who called it home lived around its feet, or in a network of tunnels dug into its foundations. The great metal structure above that served as their name and symbol was more limited in use—though not useless. There had been no power wasted on the old elevators in years, but as Yuzuriha had promised, there were still stairs to carry them (with some effort) as high as the first major lateral beams. There, in a grass and straw nest large enough to house a human family, Yuzuriha, mistress of all neigh-untameable beasts, was raising a clutch of deadland birds.

In shape they resembled some overgrown amalgamation of a raptor and a goose, slate-grey in colour, and each sporting a wingspan the size of a hang-glider. Doumeki and Kurogane had seen their like in the wild, and hunted them on occasion. They were carrion birds primarily, but no more inedible than anything else in the deadlands. Close up, the living specimens were as ugly and hostile as they remembered, but in Yuzuriha's hands they were tame enough tame enough to answer to name, and to treat the sudden intrusion of strangers with no worse than a few indignant squawks.

Tame enough to be saddled and ridden, and flow across the country.

"They won't compete with the Complexes' flying machines for speed," said Fuuma, lounging against a crossbar as Yuzuriha fussed around with saddles and harnesses, "but they'll do a journey that took you weeks on land within a day of flight."

"Why weren't they used on the trading mission?" Doumeki had to ask.

"Travelling is a different matter when there's that much weight to carry," said Fuuma dismissively. "We keep our Yuzuriha's favourite pets for special occasions."

Doumeki felt a sneaking suspicion there was more to the reason than that, but he obviously wasn't going to find out what it was. They were going to owe Fuuma an awful lot for a favour of this magnitude, but there would be no help concerning themselves about it now.

"Hey, don't go talking about favourites like that, you'll make Inuki jealous!" Yuzuriha scolded. "Is everyone ready? The saddles are all strapped on now." She patted the nearest bird on its shoulder, and it sat down obediently to allow itself to be mounted, though it craned its long neck around to watch the unfamiliar riders every step of the way. Doumeki and Kurogane exchanged one last glance before stepping forward to the strange, new experience that awaited them, Fuuma smiling encouragingly from behind.

* * *

Their first flight was a short one, only as far as from the nest to the ground where supplies for their journey were being assembled, and it was over before Doumeki could properly decide what he thought of the experience. The supplies were light and simple enough—mostly food and water to last a few humans a couple of days, and were all quickly and efficiently hooked on to the birds' saddles by the people who'd brought them without the riders having to dismount.

"The other two people who are coming with us are back at our camp," Kurogane reminded Yuzuriha while they were safely grounded.

"Sure thing, we can stop and pick them up on the way," Yuzuriha replied, balancing with practiced ease as her bird beat its wings a few times in anticipation of take-off. Inuki whined piteously from the ground at the sight of his master leaving.

"Don't worry Inuki, we'll only be gone a few days," Yuzuriha called down, waving to him. "Be good for me while we're gone!"

Inuki barked once in answer and sat down on his haunches to watch for as long as the birds carrying his master were still visible in the sky.

Take off from the ground was more laboured than the easy glide down from the nests. Doumeki gripped the pommel as the world fell away from under him, and wondered what Fye and Syaoran would make of the sight of this procession landing at their camp a few minutes away.


	21. Book 3-3

Once on the way to the Complex they stopped to rest and feed the birds, and to stretch their own legs after long hours of flying. Their supplies had not included bird-food, but that much the deadlands themselves could provide. Herds of land-bound deadland beasts were easily found from the air, as were landing sites in easy range of Doumeki's rifle. Unfazed by the gunshots, the birds tore his kills apart with ruthless efficiency.

Flying this long was hard work for them, Yuzuriha explained to the others, but nothing her birds (who were never 'her birds' when she spoke of them, but 'Itsumaden' and 'Hainu' and other such bizarre names that slipped in and out of Doumeki's memory for most of the journey) couldn't rise to as long as they were kept well-fuelled. Their mounts tolerated the presence of Doumeki and his companions with reasonable grace, provided they kept still in their saddles and did not approach during feedings, but there was no risk of any of them forgetting the creatures they rode was barely one generation separated from the wild. It was beyond Doumeki how Yuzuriha could tell them apart, let alone control them with such unwavering confidence—and certainly not for nothing that a girl so young was counted among Fuuma's most important companions.

Most of the effort of flying seemed to be in the take-off and landing; once aloft the birds could glide long distances with scarcely a wing-beat. Beneath them, the world turned slowly, stretched between distant horizons, the undulating brown of the deadlands little improved by scope or distance. Straight-forward and suspicious to a fault, Doumeki did not much relish the experience, and Syaoran stumbled off his bird at their first stop, looking badly nauseous. Motion sickness did not trouble him on earth-bound vehicles, but vertigo on this scale was a new experience.

There were two seats to each saddle, but Yuzuriha had directed them to spread their weight as thinly as possible, seating only one rider on each bird, with Syaoran and herself the only two to share. Hers was the only harness fitted with a bridle by which to steer, but the other three birds followed hers without prompting. With the world laid out beneath them, following her map and compass ought to present few of the uncertainties they'd faced making this trip from ground level. The Complex would be in view long before they arrived.

When the sun sank below the hills several hours into the journey, they had still many miles left to go and no choice but to make camp and wait out the night. Yuzuriha's birds had little night vision to speak of and would not fly in the dark. As much as the long delay stung against the furious sense of urgency that had driven them this far, there was nothing to be done about it, and, frankly, a lot of sense in getting themselves a full night's sleep before what was ahead. By torchlight, Yuzuriha spread out the map and called them all over to show off how far they'd come, to point out the landmarks which demonstrated they had perhaps no more than a few hours travel left to go. She was justifiably proud of their progress, and Doumeki, having experienced first-hand the weeks it had taken when last they'd made this journey, was suitably impressed. With the Complex looming so close, her curiosity was rising too. The subject of what waited for them in the morning was no longer avoidable.

"So, we haven't rushed all this way just to stand around outside again and wait for your friends to show up, right?" asked Yuzuriha. "You _are_ going inside this time, aren't you?"

"That's the plan," Doumeki replied, though the reality was that the closer they got, the more he became aware that they didn't have one. How didanyone plan a rescue from a Complex? What had fuelled them so far was not the expectation of success, nor any analysis of risk and benefit, but the simple fact that without the four prisoners, there was no camp to continue.

Syaoran hardly knew who he was without Sakura by his side. There was never any question that he might be persuaded to abandon her to her fate. Fye, for himself, might have been able to go on without Chi, but he would have been a lesser being in her absence. She represented so much of his life's work—so much of what he could offer to the rest of them—and he loved her like a daughter. Perhaps he might have been convinced to give her up, had Kurogane asked him to, but Kurogane had made no such request. If his camp would go to their rescue, then to their rescue he would lead. If Kurogane had reasons of his own, Doumeki did not know them, and nor did he much care.

Doumeki found little reason to examine his own motives so closely. He might have gone just for Sakura and Syaoran's sake had the rest of the camp had remained intact, and he might not have gone for Watanuki alone had it come to that—but it would have been a lie to say he'd needed any reason but the look on Watanuki's face before he left.

Everyone was going because everyone else was going. That much had needed no discussion. Unfortunately, the question of what happened once they arrived at the Complex tomorrow rather did.

Doumeki raised his eyes questioningly to the others. For all his determination, in these matters he was out of his depth. It wasn't his job to plan.

"I would hazard," said Fye in his roundabout way, "that getting inside will be the least of our problems. It's after that we'll have to find out where they've been taken, whether they've been imprisoned or marched straight to the laboratories, how well they're guarded... As for navigating a Complex, well, they're certainly not arranged for to be easily navigated by strangers. One could be forgiven for wondering how everything inside was made to fit at all."

"We'll have to improvise once we're inside?" Doumeki guessed.

"Stealth is probably our best hope, as long as we can manage it," said Fye. "How long that will be, well," he added, sounding now just a little wistful, "you might be amazed what someone can get away with hiding there, right under everyone else's noses."

There was silence for a bit before Kurogane said, "We can narrow it down a bit. They won't be outside the administration area. That cuts out most of the Complex before we start."

"True, true, there are a few things we can take as a given," Fye agreed, then paused. " _She'll_ be waiting for us there, won't she?"

Again, there was a silence that went slightly too long before Kurogane's reply. "No doubt. There's no-one one else who would have dared given an order like that."

Fye nodded, absently. "What do you think our odds are of getting through all this while avoiding her notice?" There was silence from Kurogane. "Ah. That good, hm? I suppose we can but try."

For the second time that day, Doumeki was aware something beyond his own experience was being discussed. "Is this something we should know about?"

"We did mention it before in passing," said Fye, "It isn't any ordinary Complex our friends have been taken to. This particular installation happens to be the very first that was ever built. People there... how can I explain this? They take commands directly from the very highest authority, rather than muddling their way along according to rules and guidelines the way the other Complexes do. It means things function a bit differently there. As for how that helps us plan," he snuck a look at Kurogane, "well, not very much, I'm afraid."

"This isn't the sort of mission we can plan for," said Kurogane. "The first step is still to get there and get inside. We won't know our options until then."

It may have been truer to say you couldn't plan something this crazy.

* * *

In the final hour of the flight Watanuki remembered Kohane, and the thought went through him like a knife. What had he been doing, letting himself mope and feel sorry for himself when he was the only person she had to count on? She more reason to fear the Complexes than any of them—rescued from the ruins only to be dragged screaming back. Sakura was bound to be nearly as scared—even had she no reason to fear the Complex of her own, separation from Syaoran and the others, whom she'd known and loved so much longer than him, would rend her heart. Chi too—Watanuki had scarcely had much chance to interact with her in all these months, but any blind fool could have told she was much more than a simple machine, and he hadn't the faintest clue what might be done with her after they arrived. It was his job to be the strong one here, to take care of all of them.

But hardly had Watanuki finished the thought when despair set in anew, for even if they weren't all separated on landing, what could he do? How could he possibly tell Kohane it would all be alright, when she knew more about the Complexes than he could even imagine? How could he expect her to trust him at all when every implicit promise he'd ever made to her had been made a lie? He'd hardly ever managed to take care of himself, let alone those he cared about—Himawari, or anyone else.

Hunched into a foetal curl and lost in his spiralling thoughts, Watanuki hardly noticed the craft around him was landing until he was being prodded to his feet. Through the open door, what would have been his first view of the Complex was shrouded in obscuring mist. The soldiers marched their dazed captive out into a world filled with fog so thick that it became impenetrable beyond a few metres away, that stung his skin with cold. It didn't seem to impede the men around him, who moved without hesitation, in and out of view, as they bustled around him and barked their instructions at one another. He saw Chi being led down the gangplank with a little more care, and stop to incline her head upwards, staring into what looked to Watanuki like no more than a grey blur. He saw Sakura and Kohane being led out of the other flying machine a short distance away and huddling close together under the eyes of the guards, both girls squinting around themselves until they found Watanuki's silhouette in the gloom.

The soldiers' face-covering helmets masked almost all emotive signs, but one or two of those not immediately occupied seemed uneasy, shivering and glancing around—the body language of people who couldn't make up their minds what was disturbing them. Two were speaking not more than a few paces away, but over the voices in Watanuki's ears he could hardly make out a word.

Voices, Watanuki realised all in a flash, that no-one else heard—not even Sakura and Kohane, who were certainly seeing the same as he.

Not in a lifetime of never quite seeing the horizon behind a haze of transparent bodies had Watanuki ever seen so many: a countless host of swirling, wraithlike bodies, churned together a thousand lifetimes deep, until their voices became the buzzing of a swarm. How all those soldiers could go on as if nothing was amiss he couldn't imagine. Was this the Complex every day?

A look at Kohane's face told him no. Something had drawn these ghosts here and now, moved them with common cause, and the only thing Watanuki had ever seen so motivate spirits in such density had barely filled a tiny hut, on the day the members of his last gang had gone too far...

Watanuki's head snapped up so sharply that the guard behind him jumped and brought his gun up with a yelp.

That _couldn't_ be, that... there'd been no slow build up in the hut, no dark clouds on the horizon as warning—the ghost-storm had come from nowhere, and been gone nigh as fast. His life wasn't even in danger! The guards may not have been gentle, but it had been clear throughout their instructions had been to bring their captives home unharmed—if they'd meant to kill him, why bring him this far? Watanuki was no stranger to being kidnapped at gunpoint—he certainly knew the difference. The ghosts _couldn't_ be reacting to another threat to his life, it made no sense!

But how much did he really know about what it took to drive the dead into a frenzy? The men who'd triggered the disaster at Kohane's first Complex probably had no real intent to harm her, but they'd scared her so badly the ghosts had rampaged through the whole installation. Who was to say what might be going through her head now, to find herself returned to such a place? And it wasn't just Kohane this time—he and she and Sakura made _three_ of their kind, traumatised by the shock of their abduction, petrified by the thought of what might be yet to come. Nothing but nothing could have assuaged that fear now.

If this was real, if it happened here—now... oh god. There had to be a way to stop this, but what? How could they make these people understand the danger? Did they know what happened at the other Complex? They must have had some understanding—why else would they have gone so far to bring the three of them here?—but Watanuki couldn't imagine anyone _knowingly_ bringing three so dangerous people to the heart of another Complex. There wasn't going to be any way Watanuki could explain the danger that wouldn't sound like a desperate attempt to intimidate their captors into freeing them. It would sound like madness.

All but catatonic with fear, Watanuki had to be carried most of the rest of the way to the holding facility, barely resisting and barely aware by the time the doors sealed shut behind them.

* * *

From the air, the Complex appeared as a familiar chain of miniature bubbles, not so very different to their first appearance on the horizon of their last visit, though they now seemed even smaller than he'd remembered them.

From the Complex below, their approach must have looked like nothing more interesting than the flight of a flock of deadlands birds. They had that much in their favour, at least, and they'd need it.

At Kurogane's direction Yuzuriha brought them down behind a low hill on the east side, where she remained, loudly bemoaning the hard duty of staying to mind the birds while the others had all the fun. Only the very peaks of the domes crested the hill from this angle; here, they could have hidden there out of sight for as long as they needed. Even so, now that they were this close Doumeki found himself finally beginning to question Fye's assertion that getting inside that stronghold would be the least of the challenges ahead. Syaoran, seeing the massive Complex for the first time, stared at it in awe.

"How are we going to get inside?" he gasped. "Is there a door somewhere? Won't it be guarded? Can we..."

"Yes, and very much yes," replied Fye. "No matter to us. We're taking what you might call the back way in."

Born in an era when the concept of backdoors had become largely obsolete, Syaoran frowned in incomprehension. "Back way...?"

"He's talking about an escape tunnel," said Kurogane, who was trudging heavily around the bottom of the nearest hill with his eyes on the ground.

"That would be the official term," agreed Fye, finding the chance to slip back into his storyteller mode. "The Complex you see is really no more than the tip of the iceberg, impressive a tip as it is. A lot of the infrastructure is dug underground - reasons of insulation and security and such. If the Complex ever came under attack or if there was a fire, there could be all sorts of reasons why it might not be safe for people to get to the main doors, so around every Complex..."

There as a dull clunking noise made by something solid hitting metal. "Here," called Kurogane, scraping loose soil off something buried beneath with one hand.

Fye gave an exaggerated sigh. "Not bad dramatic timing, but couldn't you have given me another minute? I was just getting to the part about the exits being concealed from the outside to keep outsiders like us from trying what we're about to do."

"Now you're done with that part, you can help me get it open," said Kurogane, unmoved.

What Kurogane had uncovered was no man-sized trapdoor, but rather a small electronic panel lined with buttons lined beneath a digital screen, all set in a flat metal surface that vanished away under the soil on all sides; obviously just one part of something much larger which remained concealed. At the press of a button the screen came to life, showing a blinking cursor.

"How does it work?" asked Syaoran.

"It's the locking mechanism," said Kurogane. "We'll need the password. How many tries do you think we'll get before it alerts the security system?" The last was directed at Fye.

"Four or five was the usual limit," Fye replied. "If everything's still connected up. Of course, the doors were designed to open automatically if the power was cut in an emergency, but they'd also have been set up to guard against a hostile gang stumbling on to them and trying to force them open, so anything we do from out here to cut the power will _definitely_ set off an alarm somewhere."

"The password to this kind of system could be anything, couldn't it?" said Doumeki. He didn't have the head for this kind of puzzle, but there were a lot of buttons to choose from.

"If it were passwords for the northern Complex in use about five years ago, I could recite you the definite list," said Fye. "Whether they'll work here and now, _that_ we're about to find out."

He knelt down by the panel and punched in a sequence which translated into a series of letters on the screen above. When finished, the panel beeped angrily at him and the letters vanished. The plate below did not budge. Two more attempts with different combinations produced the same result. With each failure, Doumeki found himself tensing a little more.

"I suppose it was a bit much to hope for that they'd leave the most obvious options active," sighed Fye. "We can probably risk one more try here, then I suppose we'll have to give it a couple of hours for the security protocol to reset, or try to find ourselves another exit point. Assuming they haven't tightened security." He rubbed the back of his neck, still smiling, but the gesture was unmistakably and uncharacteristically nervous. "Would anyone else like to do the honours of making the last guess?"

Doumeki's memory threw up a recollection of Fye calling Sakura his lucky charm. Superstition would get the better of anyone at a moment like this.

"Try 'Amaterasu'," said Kurogane. All eyes turned on him, Fye's from beneath raised eyebrows.

"Really, if you knew an entry code from the start, you could have saved me..." Fye began.

"It's no more likely to be active after this many years than any of yours," said Kurogane before Fye could go further. "And if it's still active, it may still be flagged as suspicious. We're taking a risk either way."

Wordlessly, Fye keyed in the appropriate nine letters. There was a beep from the mechanism of a much friendlier tone, followed by a hissing noise as the two doors swung slowly downwards, dislodging a shallow layer of soil to rain down into the depths below, forcing Fye to step quickly backwards. From the far side of the trapdoor, a staircase led downwards, underground.

"Seems," said Fye, "that the old users of that code of yours might not be so unwelcome after all."


	22. Book 3-4

The stairs lead down into a long, dark tunnel a couple of metres in width, with raw concrete walls, set without embellishment. A scattering of artificial lights had been set in the corners where the wall met the ceiling, illuminating the tunnel in patches of a sickly glow that was never quite enough to completely banish the gloom between them. Few resources were being wasted on an escape tunnel that would hopefully never be used.

The far end brought them to a set of double doors, these ones opening with no more than a simple latch. The door opened onto a similar though wider corridor, much better lit and with smooth walls coloured metallic white. There was the faintest hum that suggested machinery in use somewhere in the middle distance, but not one person in sight. A glowing sign over the door labelled the passageway as an emergency exit in dull red light. To the left, a glass-windowed door led to a locker room filled with what at first looked like an army of guards, but on a second look proved to be hanging rows of empty suits of armour, with helmets stacked on a nearby shelf.

"Could we use these as disguises?" Doumeki wondered aloud.

"No good," replied Kurogane, hardly looking around. "They aren't worn inside. They'll only attract more attention."

"I wonder how long it's going to take anyone to notice us," said Fye. He hadn't stopped looking nervous since they'd gotten past the security panel outside. "Use of those exits should be monitored, even if we did get the password right. They aren't in the habit of letting residents wander in and out through them as they please. There's a security protocol for dealing with exiles who did roughly what we're doing, isn't there?"

"There's one for everything," said Kurogane.

"And that unusual code you got us in with, will that make us stand out more or less, do you think?" Fye asked pointedly.

"It depends on whether they were watching for it," said Kurogane.

"And are they likely to be? That was a personal code, wasn't it? How many people were meant to know it, excluding the administrator?"

There was an uncomfortable pause. "Two," said Kurogane, then added. "One of whom has been dead for years."

"Oh dear," said Fye. "That does make it rather easy for them." He looked apprehensively down the empty corridors, expecting to see guards appearing any moment.

"We can make it harder if we keep moving," said Kurogane. He indicated the way to their right and started walking without waiting for the others. "The labs will be this way. Come on."

"I think this may be about the point where we could have used that plan," said Fye, hurrying a few steps to catch up.

"If we meet anyone, don't make eye contact, don't try to hide or run," Kurogane recited, louder to be sure everyone would hear. "If we don't make ourselves look suspicious, most people will assume we're allowed to be here - just residents they don't recognise."

"That's assuming they _don't_ recognise any of us," said Fye dryly.

"Not everyone has your memory."

"What will happen if we do get caught?" asked Doumeki.

"Assuming we're not killed in the process, the worst punishment they have here is exile," said Fye. "So we'll be thrown back out again, probably with a bit more force. You know, I might even be able to talk my way out of that. My sentence was up years ago. It wouldn't be at all hard to give them a reason why I might have only decided to come back now." He rubbed the back of his neck again. "It would be a bit harder to explain some of the company I'm keeping."

"They knew about Chi," said Kurogane bluntly. "They knew who you were before they got to the camp. It won't be hard for them to figure out why you're really here."

"I think you underestimate my creativity, Kuro-dear," said Fye, but he left it at that.

They turned a corner, leading them into another corridor little different to the first, and just as empty of occupants. Halfway down, they passed a room filled with desks, each topped with a computer terminal; all visible from the corridor through windows set in the walls and doors. For a moment, Doumeki thought they'd found their first Complex residents, but when he looked again he realised that the two women he'd thought he'd seen had the long, artificial ears for data input that marked them as humanoid units like Chi. Both had their eyes closed, inactive, and the rest of the room was silent and empty with not so much as a single flicker from a computer screen as a sign of life.

Kurogane frowned. "We should still be in work hours at this time of day."

"And if we weren't, there should always be at least one work-a-holic tech who's putting in extra time or who's left his station switched on," said Fye, sharing his confusion.

Doumeki and Syaoran stared into an unfamiliar room full of unfamiliar equipment which they were now told was also in an unaccountable state and wondered what they were supposed to make of it.

Fye shook himself and quirked an eyebrow at Kurogane. "Now if only there was some way we could check what was going on."

Kurogane barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "Fine. But be careful. Security has gotten a lot tighter since you were last anywhere like this."

The others filed into the room and crowded around as Fye selected himself a desk, Syaoran moving to the back to keep watch by little more than habit. Barely had Fye activated the screen when a message in eye-catching colours flashed up, taking over the entire display. Fye's eyes widened, his fingers hovering an inch above the keyboard.

"It's an evacuation order!" he gasped. "Everyone was ordered to the emergency bunkers." As the others crowded around to see he stared up at Kurogane, face lined with surprise and worry.

"Is it something to do with us?" asked Doumeki. It didn't seem likely that anyone would bother evacuating so many people simply because of a small group of intruders, but who was he to imagine he knew how the Complexes thought?

"I don't see how—this was issued hours ago," Fye replied.

"Are we in danger?" asked Kurogane. "It's not just a drill, is it?"

"It's the real thing," said Fye. "As for the reason, there's nothing specified—no parts of the building listed as impassable, just something about a precaution during 'diagnostic testing'. Of course, that could just as well be a lie to keep people from panicking." His eyes flickered back over the screen again. "Though if that is the case, they've done a lot of it lately. They've labelled this 'Evacuation #17'. Perhaps," he added thoughtfully, "this is some kind of response to what happened at the other Complex. Some way of checking their own systems in a controlled environment." He didn't sound very certain, but it seemed even less likely anyone was going to come up with a better guess.

"What does that mean for us?" asked Doumeki.

"If there are no guards around it could work in our favour," said Kurogane. "But if our people have been taken down to the bunkers with everyone else, it could be impossible to get them out."

"Is this the part where we sneak into the prison section, steal disguises and hide in a closet until everyone comes back and the right moment arrives?" said Fye, with what sounded more like sarcasm than he usual teasing humour.

Kurogane let out a short breath that would have been a sigh from anyone else. He hadn't stopped frowning either. "We still need to find out where they're being kept. The laboratories are still the best guess we've got. They aren't far ahead, we should get moving while we have the chance."

He made a motion towards the door, and Fye got back to his feet again. It was at that moment that they realised that Syaoran, who'd been unusually quiet since they'd entered the tunnel, was missing from the room.

They found him outside, standing in the corridor junction a few paces away, staring at the way ahead. When he heard the others running up behind him he seemed to come out of a trance.

"I," said Syaoran haltingly. "I... know these corridors. I've been here before."

Doumeki could not help but notice that neither Fye nor Kurogane seemed very surprised by this revelation.

"We need to keep moving," said Kurogane reaching out an arm, but Syaoran pulled away.

"And you do too, don't you? You've been leading the way since we got here. You're from this Complex too—you have been all along!"

The accusation hung thickly in the air between them until Kurogane broke the silence with the words, "If I am, does it matter?"

"No," said Syaoran, looking away. "Only rescuing Sakura matters."

Doumeki was starting to feel less sure. Syaoran had voiced something that had been building in his own chest as well. It had been all very well to say the past didn't matter out in the remote wilds of the deadlands, but Kurogane's familiarity with this Complex might be about to matter a great deal. He was still making up his mind on whether to press the subject when Syaoran stiffened, staring down the corridor ahead with a completely different variety of surprise. There are the next junction had appeared the first person not of their group who they'd seen since they entered this place.

It was Sakura.

For a moment Doumeki almost didn't recognise her. She was wearing a white frilly dress with coloured trim like nothing he'd ever seen before, but her face was Sakura's - or it should have been, because Sakura meeting Syaoran here should not have looked at him that way. Her expression was of a solemn sadness, and she paused in the junction to look at them all only for one long moment before she moved on around the next corner out of sight. If Doumeki had been more suspiciously inclined or hadn't known as much as he did on the subject, he might have thought he'd seen Sakura's ghost.

Syaoran yelled her name and ran forward. Kurogane swore and jumped after him, about to yell to him to wait, but he didn't need to. Syaoran ground to a halt again after barely a handful of steps.

"That's... not Sakura," he breathed, as if he hardly understood what he was saying himself. He looked back at the others over his shoulder, confusion written over his every feature, but before they could respond his resolve hardened, and he leapt back down the corridor where she'd disappeared.

There was nothing to do but run after him, Kurogane complaining audibly about 'that damn kid', yelling to Syaoran to wait, though it was obvious little could have stopped him now. Syaoran may have had the shortest stride amongst them, but he sprinted like a panicked animal. Far from catching him, even keeping up was an effort.

"That Sakura—was that really...?" Fye gasped.

"Another. No time," Kurogane yelled back. "This is the wrong way. He's being _led_ —"

By the time the others rounded the corner, Syaoran was most of the way down the corridor ahead. He looked around only briefly at the next junction before running off again, so quickly they could only guess what he'd seen to keep him going.

The passageway he'd turned down ended in a set of double doors, larger and grander than any they'd passed thus far, one of them standing open. Syaoran was standing frozen to the spot not two paces from the person who stood in the doorway, holding it open from inside.

Syaoran had nearly run head first into an identical copy of himself.

The others couldn't see his expression from behind, but the scene his stiff posture combined with what was standing in front of him could have told them all they needed to know. The other Syaoran stared at him with a mild curiosity that suggested he'd encountered something interesting, but ultimately unremarkable. After a moment, he glanced back over his shoulder as if looking for instructions, then stepped aside to clear the doorway.

"Please do come in," called a soft, feminine voice from inside. It carried down the hallway more easily than it should have; the bare walls making it echo in unnatural ways. "I have been waiting for you. All of you."

Moving like he was in a dream, Syaoran took a shaky step forward through the open doorway.

"What do we..." Fye started to say, turning towards his companions, then stopped as he laid eyes on Kurogane, who was staring down the hallway like he'd seen a ghost—perhaps even his own.

"I suppose we don't have a choice, do we?" said Fye softly.

The three of them walked the rest of the way down the hallway.

The room beyond the doorway made little lasting impression on Doumeki. It was larger than any space they'd entered thus far in the Complex and the same metallic white of everything else, but their attention was drawn so quickly to its centre that the details of its extents faded in comparison. There, in a high-backed white chair that was not quite a throne sat a girl with long, dark hair that spilled down loosely over her shoulders, and soft, loving eyes. She was dressed in a high-necked black dress with thin lines of white ruffles trimming the neck and sleeves, the design simple and elegant in a manner which Doumeki had none of the language he would have needed to describe. She looked young and impossibly sweet. She looked like someone who could see you for the first time and know everything about you and everything you'd ever done, and forgive you for all of it in the next breath.

To either side of her stood two Sakuras, distinguishable to Doumeki's eye only by the details of their dresses. The other Syaoran stood by the door with his arms folded, and there was a third one on the other side with a similar expression. Syaoran—their Syaoran—stood a few paces in from the doorway, looking from the two Sakuras to his own copies and back again. There was little doubt which he found the most important.

"What is this?" he breathed. "Where's... where's the real Sakura? What...?"

"They are all real," said the girl in the high-backed chair. Her voice was still soft, but something in its tone discouraged others from talking over it. "These two are not your Sakura, but please understand, they are every bit as real as she. The others of yourself are the same."

"You never said you meant to make more than one." It took the others a moment to register that it was Kurogane who had spoken, his voice so rough it emerged as little more than a croak.

The girl turned to look at him with an expression of infinite fondness. "It may not have been planned, but what could we but rejoice when the final generation produced more than one success? Welcome home, Kurogane. I had hoped it would not take this long."

Kurogane did not seem to know how to reply.

Syaoran looked from the girl to Kurogane and back again. "Home? What's going on?" he demanded. "Who are you?"

"My name," said the girl, "Is Daidouji Tomoyo. That may mean little to those raised so long on the outside, so allow me to explain this also: I am known as the founder. The project which created everything you see here, every Complex in this country, was mine."


	23. Book 3-5

There had been a time when Kurogane would have done anything for Tomoyo. How long ago that had been he could no longer quite place; it seemed like someone else's memory rather than his own

Like Souma, the day the world ended left him an orphan, but Tomoyo had found them both in the days when the Complexes were still under construction and seen potential in them, or perhaps taken pity on them, and had raised them herself through the worst years when the project was still young. As adults, they were given the honour of being her personal bodyguards, though she rarely needed either of them in that role. No-one in the Complex would have dreamed of hurting her. She was like a goddess to them, and to a man her people worshipped her, as the one who had brought hope to this dying world.

There may well have been no-one else in the world who could made possible what she achieved. So much had been lost, and in the aftermath so many more sacrifices had to be made just to keep the human race alive; by rights the rules which governed the new Complexes should have been doomed by controversy from the very beginning. It was here that Tomoyo came into her own. With eyes that shone with unshed tears she had told her people that there was no shame in mourning all that was lost, but the task was now theirs to look to the future. When she spoke, every harsh compromise they made was shown necessary beyond the slightest doubt, every supposedly inhuman measure justified in the name of the greater good. It was a truth that went beyond question. She would always do what was best for all of them, and her boundless wisdom and vision would be what they all looked to, guiding them for as long as it took to remake their world anew.

She was exactly what the people needed.

Kurogane had dedicated his life to supporting that, but he wasn't sure whether he'd ever taken real pride in it. It was simply the job he'd been given.

For a long time, he'd blamed his growing doubts on proximity.

As Tomoyo's personal bodyguard, no-one saw more of her than he did. She may not have needed much guarding, but she did need someone who could do whatever was necessary and who took orders directly from her, and Kurogane and Souma had been raised just for that role. No-one else could make you feel as important as she did. When she made her speeches to her people to tell them how completely essential the efforts of every man, woman and child was to the Complexes' success, it was never just pretty words, but something she believed from the core of her being. One-on-one, the effect was even more overwhelming in its sincerity.

The upshot was that no-one ever argued with her. Her advisers and direct subordinates tried on rare occasion, but never won. By the time she was done with her argument they never seemed to mind, either. Tomoyo would listen with the utmost sincerity to what they had to say, and she would listen the same way to any doubts they voiced, and then she would explain with words that no-one could ever question why her decision was the only possible path that could be taken.

There were a lot of those meetings over the years, with a lot of different representatives and committees—all the endless divisions that had been established to run their project, but none of whom were ever capable of making their most vital decisions without Tomoyo's input. For Kurogane, always watching the proceedings from his place behind her chair, the performance had eventually begun to grow old. It was like seeing a magician repeat the same magic trick every night to a captive audience that never tired of it. He never could figure out quite how it was done, but nor could he quite convince himself the magic was real either.

Wrapped in Tomoyo's silver words, any atrocity could be justified. It became unquestionable that supplies that supported the young and healthy could not be wasted supporting the old and sick beyond their useful lifetimes, or that those left scraping out a living in the deadlands could be so utterly abandoned and forgotten. It had been her inspiration that had allowed the Complexes to be established so fast and prosper so well, but it also meant their future hinged on just one person _never_ making a mistake.

To Kurogane, that didn't seem right at all.

It wasn't just proximity, it was distance too. As Tomoyo's agent, Kurogane was one of very few who's duties took him outside the safety of the Complex on occasion, and brought him into contact with the outsiders. They were unpleasant, desperate people with little sympathy to spare for their more fortunate counterparts on the inside. The Complex dwellers considered them barbaric, and Kurogane himself could rarely muster more than pity. But even limited contact with them proved one thing very clearly: they were still people. They had every bit as much right to survive as those on the inside did. The only difference between the haves and the have-nots came down to little more than luck, and that kind of stark reality would have made anyone uneasy.

Tomoyo was endlessly sympathetic, but just as resolved. There would be no compromise, no quarter spared for those outside. It was for their own good. She would speak of them on occasion in her speeches to her people, of their less fortunate brothers and sisters, but in the world weaved by her words, everything the Complexes did was for the benefit of the future of the whole human race—the outsiders included. Those inside the Complex went away with their consciences clear, the people of the deadlands so rarely remembered in their thoughts that they might have belonged to a whole other world. It was just that little bit too easy.

Of course, there was no way anyone as perceptive as Tomoyo herself could have gone long without realising that something was bothering him, and she could not possibly leave him to struggle with it on his own. Nor could any well meaning person last long when Tomoyo meant to extract an answer from them. She sat and listened with the serenest attention as he made the long and halting admission about his doubts, then she clasped both of her hands around one of his own and replied, "But of course you must question me if you ever fear my decisions may be wrong. I rely on all of my closest advisors to challenge me to justify the judgements I have made. If I can make you understand and agree, that is how we will know the path we are taking is correct."

Kurogane couldn't find it in himself to doubt she meant it. If she ever lied, she must have lied so convincingly as to make even herself believe. She did rely on the people beneath her in every decision she made—that much was obvious. She depended upon them to bring her news and information and to offer her their advice, but when it came to making the final decision, it was always she who made it, and once her mind was made up nothing would ever change it.

"What if she makes a mistake?" Kurogane asked Souma one day. It made him uneasy to bring it up out loud, but if anyone in the Complex should have understood, it was her. Souma had always been as close to Tomoyo as he was, had had a front row seat to just as much of her stage-magic. However, Souma took a very different view.

"It is _because_ she's never led us wrong that the people trust her," Souma countered. "Lady Tomoyo has done more for her people than anyone has—than anyone _could_. She has earned our faith in her a thousand times over. Why would you question that?"

"So that means she's infallible?" Kurogane asked.

"She has never claimed any such thing," said Souma, offended. "That is _exactly_ why she depends on you and me to ensure she never fails. That is _why_ she encourages you to argue with her. That is why she deserves our faith."

Kurogane may have spent his life in the tutelage of a master wordsmith, but he never mastered the art himself. If anything, he developed a growing distrust for words over the years. There was nothing he could say to an argument like Souma's.

Nonetheless, the doubts never abated. They weren't idle concerns either. Just because he never won an argument with Tomoyo didn't mean he stopped thinking about the ones he'd lost.

The cloning project was one of the worst ones.

As usual, Tomoyo's logic was unassailable. "We can't put all our efforts into merely surviving. Our world will not repair itself for us simply because we have been patient. We must make an equal effort to improve ourselves—to prepare for new challenges which may lie ahead," was how she had put it, and like all her proclamations, no reasonable person could have argued.

By the very nature of its isolation, the Complex was rendered more terrifying vulnerable than anyone but Tomoyo's closest confidents and best scientists knew. One major outbreak of disease could decimate the population before anything could be done to stop it. Even if a cure were found and it became safe for other Complexes to send aid, a whole valuable installation could be left empty for generations to come. There was no longer any question that replacements might be found from the people of the deadlands—it had been far too many years since any of them had had contact with civilisation. Every principle of Complex management worked to limit population growth to no more than what the domes could reliably support—there would be no one who could be spared to repopulate an empty Complex.

The aim of the cloning project—supposedly—was to create a way to build a population back up again as fast as possible. Humans would be engineered so that they would grow and learn many times faster than usual, so a whole new generation could make it to adulthood within the space of only a couple of years. It was far more than idle fantasy; the main principles behind the process had been discovered long before the day the world ended. All that remained was to turn theory into practice and fine-tune the result.

"There will be other applications too," Tomoyo had said enthusiastically. "The processes we have developed to reclaim damaged land continues to improve. Plans to expand our Complex may be realised before the year is out. Before long, we will be able to move to entirely new sites to establish ourselves. Think how much faster we will be able to work if such a great limitation is removed!"

All of which only came down to a lot of very fancy words and justifications for human experimentation.

Even after he got his head around the rationale behind them (which was more like him and it declaring a ceasefire so it could be pushed to the back of his mind), Kurogane never did get used to that army of clones she was raising. He maybe could've dealt with the failure rate of the earliest generations—the way so many of them were born visibly broken, that moved like they were in a trance and looked at him with those soulless eyes, rarely living to see their first year. What got him most was the way they all looked exactly the same—that every pair of empty eyes that turned to stare right through him as he walked through their midst was the same pair, over and over again.

"Do they have to be made like that?" he asked her flat-out, when the project was in its second month.

"That too has its purpose," Tomoyo told him, regretfully. "If they aren't able to act as control specimens for each other, we won't know which variations to the method have been effective. Once we have perfected the process for these two, then we can move on the creating new genetic make-ups."

The impeccable logic of it all didn't make it any less creepy.

It wouldn't have been nearly so bad if he hadn't had to see them so often. The project was kept to one isolated wing—it was little more than rumour to the general population, even to most of Tomoyo's staff. But few of them had jobs requiring them to be at her side as much as Kurogane's did, and Tomoyo insisted on taking a personal interest in just about each and every batch. She was delivered an updated report on their progress every morning, her lips pursing sadly whenever she read of a new death. She found the time to see them in person a couple of times each week, her face lighting up with a fond smile (one few of them ever figured out how to return) as she walked through their midst, stopping to take a hand or stroke a head, to peer into their faces and see which were doing well. It was too easy to believe the clones recognised her too—when she came by, the ones who were most awake would turn to face her, like flowers following the sun. Kurogane didn't know how she could tell them apart—whether it mattered to her which was which, but still she doted on them as if every one were her own beloved children. Children who would grow up in no more than a year or two, if they lived that long.

"Is it wise to get so attached?" he asked on another occasion.

"It's the only way we can raise them," she'd replied—her conviction, as ever, unshakable. "Who will love them if we do not? And how can we trust ourselves to remember that they are to be as human as we are, to work tirelessly to fix them, if we do not care for them?"

Kurogane thought it wasn't much a case of fixing—that at last check, objectivity had more value than emotional connection when a life was in your hands, but there was no arguing with Tomoyo. To love them was to punish herself for every death she caused, and there was a justice to that—however discomforting—that he couldn't help but see.

* * *

When the day came on which news of a murder at a neighbouring Complex was brought to Tomoyo's ears, she responded officially by expressing her deepest sympathies for the woman's family and her hopes that the perpetrator would be caught and brought to justice. No-one expected what the investigation would eventually reveal.

The Flowright scandal was not the reason Kurogane left. It wasn't even the last straw—it would be another two years and more after that before he finally made his fateful decision. Strictly speaking, it wasn't even Tomoyo's fault. She may have dictated the laws by which they lived, but the job of deciding how they were enforced so far away was one of few things she did leave to others.

Ashura Flowright was a madman. You could argue back and forth about whether it had been life in the Complex that had driven him mad, but the conclusion was unavoidable, and so was his punishment. It was harder to be sure what one was supposed to feel about the plight of the two Flowright boys. Their case generated some real sympathy, going by the whispers that made their way around the Complex grapevine. Others suggested the twins were probably no less insane than their father.

No matter how long he spent turning the matter around in his mind, Kurogane could never satisfy himself that the ruling should have been as black and white as it was presented. Evidence that the twins had played any accessory to the murder was shaky at best. The crime they were sentenced for was conspiracy to conceal their father's deeds. Ashura Flowright—mad or otherwise—had risked everything to protect his children. They'd been raised knowing nothing but secrecy—by a man who'd taken insane risks to protect them, and now they were being punished for the heinous crime of never daring to betray their own father.

Kurogane didn't know what the right way to deal with the situation would have been, but he was sure this wasn't it. Tomoyo's usual sympathy was as useless in comforting him as it was to the Flowrights. The incident had genuinely saddened her, but condolences were all she could offer.

"I know how bad it feels to be required to stand useless while events like this pass, but it is not your part to interfere, nor mine," she told him. "Haven't you spoken before on how I cannot hope to govern every facet of my kingdom? The other Complexes must be able to deliver their own judgement according to our laws."

It was strange to find himself wishing Tomoyo would interfere with a decision that wasn't hers to make. But even if she had... "Would you have handled it the same way if it had happened here?"

"Kurogane, do you believe the twins did not deserve punishment?" Tomoyo asked, looking him directly in the eye. He didn't have an answer.

"Put yourself in their position. Are you sure this is not just? Everything their father has done—good or ill—he has done for their benefit. He will receive judgement for what he did for them, and they will live always knowing that he was punished for their sake. Do you think they would accept that? Do you think they would prefer that their father alone shoulders the burden for what he did for them? This way, a limited sentence, may be the only way they have to ever feel they have made amends for what he endured on their account."

"You think they should be _grateful_ to be punished?" Kurogane felt physically ill. "You think they would have asked for this?"

"I believe," said Tomoyo, "that the kindest thing we can do for them is _not_ to ask them to make such a judgement. This way, they will not be forced to decide what they or their father do or not deserve. They may serve their sentence and return with the knowledge that they have atoned for any crime they have committed."

"They won't be back again," said Kurogane. "Living or dead."

"Even you cannot predict everything that may pass for them in the next two years," Tomoyo replied. "Their fate is not yet decided. We can but wait and see."

Kurogane did wait and see, if not intentionally. He didn't even notice that the day had come that marked the end of the Flowrights' sentence until someone else reminded him of it; it had been so obvious to him that none of the Flowrights would be returning that he'd never bothered to mark it. In any case, it would have been remarkable if even the twins had been able to time their return so precisely, and several months longer passed before he allowed himself to feel even the slightest empty vindication that his prediction had been correct. But it was hardly much of a victory when he knew that Tomoyo would never admit it, and for all he could actually prove of the matter, the twins might well be long dead.

It still took him another couple of months longer to terms with just where that train of thought was leading him, by which point he must've been heading there steadily for years. There was no final trigger, nothing beyond a slow build up of everything he'd never been able to stop himself thinking for so long. If even once he'd seen Tomoyo doubt herself— _ask_ for reassurance, that might have been enough to change things, but she never did. Not even when faced with undeniable proof of what the rules of her Complexes had inspired good people to do had she ever expressed the slightest feeling of guilt—the least wish that maybe the world might have granted her the means to find a better way—even to her closest confidant.

It wasn't even that she was _wrong_ —god knew what was right in a world like this. He just couldn't be the one to stand up and defend her anymore.

He'd meant to leave in secret. Even if his was the one thing Tomoyo wouldn't be able to talk him out of, weaselling out of his last ever argument with her was the most revenge he would allow himself. Obtaining the supplies he'd need to survive his first days outside gave him ample opportunity to rethink what he was doing, but he'd been careful to keep that hidden until the last minute too—or thought he had.

It was probably more than bad luck that Souma caught up with him on the way out.

He hadn't meant to kill her. They argued, but Souma was so vehement that he was insane to consider leaving at all that she refused to listen. She'd been the one to declare she'd stop him by force if she had to—even to fire the first shot—and after that he hadn't had much other choice, and he'd been too angry to think straight. He'd been aiming to disable—only she'd seen him move and jumped in the wrong direction, and that part really had been just bad luck. Kurogane had been too mad and in too much of a hurry to go back and make for certain, but it should have been instantaneous. He hadn't lost too much sleep over it in the years since—people died for worse reasons. At Her command, Souma had surely killed for worse.

The only thing that made the difference was that Souma had been his ally, had been there at his back to support him when no-one else had been, had known him since childhood. Relationships like that weren't meant to end that way.

But after a betrayal like Kurogane's, a fatality or two on the way out could only seal the matter. Once or twice in the years that followed the knowledge of what had happened had even become a kind of cold comfort. He was committed. There was no going back.


	24. Book 3-6

The girl who'd introduced herself as Tomoyo looked solemnly around the faces gathered in the room before speaking again. "Is it true what I see in the eyes of your companions, Kurogane? They know nothing of me; none of them have ever learned the truth about your past? Not even when you sent your own to trade with us were they to know that this was your home, that you were once my most trusted advisor."

"They didn't need to know," said Kurogane, his voice regaining some of its usual steadiness.

"Not even though they trusted their lives to your judgement? You were so ashamed of your origins that you would never dare to speak of them?" She sounded genuinely saddened, though she had lost none of her composure. Doumeki frowned at her.

"As the man said, we didn't need to be told," said Fye sharply. When Tomoyo's attention came to rest on him he barely held himself from flinching.

"You are the one known as Fye D. Flowright? I have not had the pleasure before," she said. "I should offer a welcome home to you too."

"That's funny," said Fye. "I was never welcome at my own Complex, even when I lived there."

"That is another matter which I hope we may resolve for you at this meeting," said Tomoyo, just as smooth as everything else she'd uttered, "but you are not one of those among your campmates who were punished worst by the secret of Kurogane's history. Your Syaoran, I am given to understand, has been left with little memory of his own past—a past you could have revealed to him at any time."

"It wasn't my secret to share," said Kurogane. "That was between him and Sakura."

"But even your Sakura knew sadly little of her origin, so young was she at the time of the tragedy that compelled her to leave us." Tomoyo's eyes shone with sympathy.

"And if she'd wanted to know anything more, she knew perfectly well she could have asked _me_ ," said Fye. "You aren't going to convince Kurogane he's mistreated us like this."

"What are you all talking about?" said Syaoran, loud and impatient. "This is why I remember this place? Why there are three of me and three of Sakura too?"

"Indeed, you and your Sakura were born here," said Tomoyo. "Children of a project of rebirth of my own initiation—you and all your siblings here. By rights, both you and your Sakura should never have had to leave this place, if it were not for the most unfortunate of accidents; events we did not come to understand until years later. Though we did not recognise it then, you and she should have been our first success."

"That's a nice way of putting it—" Kurogane began, but Syaoran talked over him.

"Then why don't I remember it?"

"I can only presume it is the result of trauma inflicted during the events of your escape," said Tomoyo. "It may yet be possible to restore those memories, if you wish."

"I..." said Syaoran, then resolve seemed to return to him. "That isn't what we came here for! You took Sakura away! Where is she?"

"Do not fear, she is safe," said Tomoyo. "They are all safe."

"That's not what I asked! Where is she!?"

If Tomoyo hesitated, it was for less than a moment. "She and the other two have been placed in a shielded facility not far from here. As a protective measure."

Syaoran got stuck on the oddity her last four words long enough to pause and blink, but he pushed it aside just as quickly. "Tell me where!"

"They are barely two walls away from us, but please do not rush to assume that gaining entry will be as simple as walking in or breaking down a door. Do not be hasty, there is still much we need to discuss."

Syaoran took a step forward and opened his mouth to continue his demands, but was stopped by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder. Doumeki had heard enough.

"Two walls away in which direction?"

It wasn't hard to understand why having Tomoyo's full attention on them had made the others so uneasy. You wouldn't have believed she was meeting Doumeki for the first time, from the way she turned to him. You could almost have believed she must have known him forever, and it was _his_ mistake that he didn't remember it. "You—if you'll excuse my presumption—you are known as Doumeki Shizuka, the one original resident of the deadlands I find before me today? I fear you must be one of those present at the most disadvantage—of course, the truth of your leader's past must be difficult to come to terms with..."

"Not my business," said Doumeki. "We didn't come here to talk. Two walls in which direction?"

Tomoyo pursed her lips. She was far too composed to show outward impatience, but Doumeki knew he wasn't conforming to her script.

"If I give you the answer, what do you intend to do? Do you mean to wail against them with naught but your own strength, merely to prove me wrong? Please, this course of action will benefit no-one. If you will only hear me out, I am sure we can come to understand each other."

Doumeki narrowed his eyes. As tempting as it was to resort to familiar methods, he was out of his depth here—and Tomoyo, as she had already taken pains to establish, held all the cards. No amount of courtesy could hide the fact that either she was using the hostages to keep them here talking, or she was keeping them talking to buy time for whatever was being done with the hostages. He wasn't fond of either option.

Tomoyo sighed. "You are so determined to cast me as the villain, Doumeki?"

"You had Watanuki kidnapped at gunpoint." _And the girls_ , though he hadn't been forced to watch them taken, while he stood helpless.

"That is correct, it was my direct order." There was a tinge to her voice that might have been interpreted as regret, but Doumeki wasn't sure whether it was an emotion she was hiding badly or one affected for his benefit. There was not the slightest suggestion of shame. "But I submit to you that we have taken nothing our Complexes did not have a right to. Mr Flowright," her eyes may have left Doumeki here, but there was no relaxing now, "you cannot deny the core processor of the computer we recovered was an item you and your brother smuggled illegally from the Complex at the time of your exile, can you?"

Fye said nothing, merely looked away.

"Similarly, the girl Kohane was a resident of our neighbouring Complex at the time of its destruction. I know you think my methods cruel, Kurogane, but I assure you—we have made it our business to locate and accommodate every survivor of that catastrophe we could find."

"Even those who had no desire to be found?" said Kurogane darkly.

"Regrettably, Kohane's own wishes are irrelevant in this matter. As she is not yet of age, it is her late mother's will we much respect, and she made it known until her death that she had no wish for either herself or her daughter to leave the safety the Complex provided. You and your dear Sakura are the same," she continued, turning to Syaoran, who flinched visibly as her eyes fell on him. "The incident which led to your departure from the Complex has come to be viewed as the most regrettable accident. None of your caretakers ever intended either of you any harm, and as you, like Kohane, are still children, it remains your caretakers' decision whether the Complex or the outside world is the suitable environment for you."

"What about Watanuki?" said Doumeki, anger barely contained in his words. "He's never belonged to any Complex."

"Indeed, the one known as the April Fool is a different case," said Tomoyo, "but I ask you to remember, all his known history, who has he been considered to belong to? The answer is whichever gang was able to capture and hold him. We have done nothing but follow the same rules observed outside, by that account, and think—we can offer him here what no-one else can. All his life he has been fought over. All he has ever wished for is to see the bloodshed carried out in his name finally cease, and that we can promise him, as long as this is where he remains."

"You damned hypocrite," Kurogane swore. "Every time the outside was mentioned to you, you'd say you couldn't interfere. You lived by the mantra that the rules had to be different for them—that there was nothing you can do to help. But as soon as they have something you want, you can interfere all you like."

"In the case of a power like Watanuki's, what rules can we be expected to apply?" Tomoyo was suddenly very serious. "In all your time with him, I doubt very much that any of you truly understand the true implications of what he can do."

"You believe the stories," Doumeki heard himself say, though he'd never assumed anything otherwise.

"It is scarcely a matter of belief, Doumeki. We know as well as you do how real his powers are. How real _all_ their powers are."

Doumeki gave her a long look. There weren't any pieces around to fall into place after that admission—none that he hadn't put together already, but a subject they'd been skirting around thus far could no longer be avoided. "This is about what happened to the other Complex, isn't it?"

"It is about everything your friends can offer us—everything we can offer to them. But I will not lie to you—without what happened at Kohane's Complex, we would not be here now. A tragedy so great could not help but shift the balance of a great many things."

"Can it?" said Doumeki. "How much do you know about what happened there?"

Tomoyo turned serenely back to look Doumeki in the eye. "Perhaps you feel you may know better than me?"

The truth was he didn't know a lot. Everything Watanuki had told him had come out in one conversation, one that they'd never come back to, so brief that Doumeki couldn't even be sure he'd understood it all correctly, but... "It was the dead."

He could feel the silent ripple of surprise than ran through his companions, the way everyone was staring at him. It was a bad moment to recognise that he'd missed his chance to share this with them first, but too late to turn back now. "It was Kohane. She sees ghosts. Something they did to her made them angry enough to kill everyone in Complex but her."

Tomoyo nodded, as if this was nothing so very extraordinary. "I see. So she was able to share those events with her new campmates. That poor girl; we were not certain whether she herself would be able to rightly comprehend what had occurred."

"Then you knew."

"What happened to the ruined Complex?" asked Tomoyo. "Of course. After investigating the site thoroughly, it was the only conclusion. The limited computer records we were able to retrieve allowed us to reconstruct the circumstances of the disaster in sufficient detail, including the conditions of the misguided experiment which scared poor Kohane so very badly. As impossible as it may sound, it was not the first such incident we had recorded, though it is only lately that we have come to understand the true nature of such incidents—the anger of the dead, as you put it, in our sad world of too many ghosts. Knowing all this, you must appreciate that steps had to be taken to ensure such a tragedy could not take place again."

"Like kidnapping everyone you could find with that ability and bringing them here?" said Kurogane. The roughness of his voice before was beginning to give way to a very real, cold anger.

Doumeki narrowed his eyes. "That doesn't make sense."

"Whatever you may call it, it is only what was necessary," said Tomoyo, answering them both. "Knowing the danger they posed to us, our only choice was to secure them."

"You did... are you insane?!" Fye almost shrieked. "You brought three people with the ability to destroy a Complex _here_?"

"Of course," said Tomoyo, as though this really was the most logical thing in the world. "There was no other way to test whether the protective measures we have developed would work."

"...the what?" This was more than Doumeki had expected.

"Protective measures," Tomoyo repeated calmly. "The circumstances of the other Complex's destruction were not all we were able to learn from the ruins. A chance observation at the ruined site lead us to the discovery of a means by which we might contain such an event, should it happen again."

"How?" Should that even have been possible at all?

"Of course you are curious, but I expect the technical details will be beyond your vocabulary," Tomoyo replied. "What is important is that we have spent the past weeks using this method to construct a sealed room within which the influence of as similar incident could be contained. However, all this remained no more than theory until we could test it. And for that, although you may question my means, we needed your friends."

"You..." Even in anger, Kurogane's control was inhuman, but the rage seeping into his voice was unmistakable. "You kidnapped three of my people, brought them all this way, all for the sake of one of your _experiments?_ "

"It is for the sake of every person whose life has been made my responsibility," said Tomoyo, laying a hand on her breast.

"And what if your idea fails?" Kurogane barked. "The life of every person here is at risk. The same disaster you are trying to prevent is going to happen all over again!"

"Kurogane, I have not grown so overconfident that I would ignore such danger," said Tomoyo. "We had great hope that the seal would work, but we have not ignored the risk we faced if we were mistaken. That is why you find my Complex now deserted. Every resident but myself and my few attendants have been sent to the emergency bunkers until the experiment is complete."

"If your seal didn't work, why should even the bunkers be safe?!"

"It was a calculated risk, and I assure you all possible care was taken when those calculations were made. In any case, the matter is now irrelevant. Had I been wrong, none of us would be standing here alive now. The experiment has been underway since well before you arrived. Our seal," Tomoyo smiled, "has been an unmitigated success!"

There was silence in the room.

"What did you do to them?" asked Doumeki, voice cold as ice.

Tomoyo gave him a considering look. She was not the least cowed by him—or any of them—but her answer was came a little faster to the point than many of her previous ones. "From the records we retrieved from the ruined Complex, we were also able to gain some insight into what triggered the episode in the test subject. It appears to function as a defence mechanism—quite beyond the owner's conscious control—which activates upon recognition of a threat placing their lives in immediate danger. In other words, you may think of it as a reaction to a specific quality of fear.

"That is a difficult thing to trigger in under controlled conditions. Some level of cruelty was unavoidable, and I can only hope I may eventually convince those three to forgive me that much, such are the stakes resting on this experiment. As a last resort we considered making the subjects believe their lives to be threatened, or recreating the conditions which triggered the event at the other Complex. However, we are fortunate in that a more subtle method has proven sufficient. In that respect, obtaining all three of those we may refer to as 'April Fools' at once appears to have worked in our favour, as the stress of their transport here alone was enough. The incident triggered almost immediately after they were placed in isolation."

Doumeki decided that he didn't much like the idea of what Tomoyo considered a 'merciful' method. He also decided—after a little more mental reasoning—that shooting her somewhere not immediately fatal would not be a constructive way to react.

"I am not proud of the cruelty which your friends have been subjected to, but our hands were tied," Tomoyo went on. "The experiment had to be carried out on unknowing subjects, so they could be told nothing of what they would face. However, you must see that it is by far the lesser evil in comparison to the loss and suffering of allowing Complex to meet the same fate.

"In fact, once the storm subsides and we are able to reveal the full circumstances of the experiment to our guests, I have every hope they may come to see it, not as cruelty, but as a gift—an act of the greatest kindness. All three have carried the guilt of harm done in similar outbursts in the past, and the fear that they may someday harm those closest to them. I am certain that learning that no-one has been injured, and that we now have the means to protect people from this aspect of their power, will come as a great comfort."

"Only you could turn this around into being for their own benefit," said Kurogane, when at last she'd finished.

"It will be worth it, many times over," said Tomoyo. "You have all come here with the best of intentions, but I have barely begun to explain to you just how much is as stake. I needed your friends in order to find a means to protect our Complexes, this is true, but this is barely the beginning. The work done at the lost Complex has finally proven something we have spent years in search of: the ghosts are real! And through the medium of individuals like these three, we have the means to communicate with them. Think how much this could mean! You yourselves have spent much of the last year profiting from the assistance of the dead with Watanuki's help; you who comprise a camp not even a dozen strong. Think how that ability could aid a Complex of this size—Complexes all over the world!"

Kurogane's fists clenched and his teeth ground; it was suddenly very easy for Doumeki to believe he'd spent a lot of his life hearing speeches like this one. It sounded crazy. It sounded so absolutely sane and rational that it could leave you in awe. None of it mattered. Every atom of Doumeki's being was telling him this was all wrong.

"And what about Chi?" said Fye suddenly, finding a resort in a subject change that he must have wanted to make for a long time. "I haven't forgotten about her just because you've done such a very nice job of justifying doing whatever you may please with our human friends, but you hardly lack for computers in this place. How was taking her from us anything but a deliberate attempt to cripple our camp?"

"The experimental Chobit we retrieved is a different matter, perhaps one we should have dealt with long ago," said Tomoyo, undaunted. "Under the very guiding principles on which the project was founded, we cannot allow any such technology to fall into the hands of the residents of the outer lands, especially a piece equipped with our transfer protocols and codes. Any means by which residents from outside the Complexes may intercept the messages we exchange presents an intolerable risk."

"Too great a risk?" Fye hissed. "What do you think we do with that information, plan an invasion? Do you have any idea how much she means to us? To everyone we trade with? The weather reports alone...!"

"The weather reports you have grown accustomed to distributing are precisely why we could not leave her in your hands," said Tomoyo. "Mr Flowright, you were a resident of one of my Complexes not so very long ago. Someone of your intelligence must have discerned the true reasoning behind our policies. Those who live outside the Complexes are no less important to the future of our world than we ourselves, and their means and the means of the Complexes _must_ remain separate. Should calamity ever befall us and my great domes fall, it is they who will be left the task of rebuilding this world. That is why we must do nothing to help them, for if they cannot learn to survive without us, their survival has no meaning. Everyone in this world has the right to survive. Everyone in this world has the responsibility to live on, by any means they can, for the good of the future of all of us."

Fye tried to speak again, but Tomoyo held up a hand. "I know what you will say, that distributing the reports is your way of surviving, but it is a shamefully short-sighted way to live. You have seen for yourselves that even my Complexes may be vulnerable. You must have seen your neighbours begin to grow dangerously dependent on your weather reports. For the prosperity of your own camp you have even encouraged this. It must end. Everything we do, every sacrifice I have been forced to make, has been made for a greater cause."

"Including Watanuki?" asked Doumeki.

"Nothing I have asked him to endure is worse than what he has endured before for lesser cause," Tomoyo declared. "Nor do I think you have realised how much we can offer him that you cannot. As I have said, I have great hopes that I will be able to make him understand the necessity of what I have done; even that he may eventually thank me for it."

Doumeki remembered the way Watanuki had reacted when he'd heard about the trading mission. He hadn't gone into specifics, but he'd made his opinion perfectly clear. "It won't be that easy. He hates the Complexes."

"On the contrary, he knows very little about us that is not either hearsay or falsehood," said Tomoyo. "Once he has met us and had the opportunity to see us as people rather than as some distant threat, he will see us in a different light."

"You don't know that." Doumeki bristled. "You don't know him."

"It is true, I have not yet had that pleasure," Tomoyo admitted. "But I do know a great many things about him which you will not be able to deny. Watanuki lives in the utmost terror of the implications of his own powers. He has seen people killed for them, killed _by_ them, always against his will, himself no more than the lynch pin at the centre of events, helpless to prevent them. Surely you must see that no matter what empty reassurances you may have given him, to him, it is inevitable that either another gang will slaughter each and every one of you to steal him away—or worse, that his life will be threatened again in your presence and you will die at the hands of his overprotective ghosts. Can you not imagine what it will mean to him to learn that we have a means to shield people even from the ghosts themselves? Here alone, we can protect him. We can give him more than he has ever dared to hope for."

"And in return, you get to keep a personal eye on the only people in the country who could threaten what you've built," said Kurogane through gritted teeth.

"That is a little disingenuous of you, Kurogane," Tomoyo replied. "I have already told you that this one experiment is only the beginning. You have benefited greatly from Watanuki's presence at your camp over the past year, but none of you—not even those three themselves—have yet come to appreciate the true potential of the great gift they possess. The dead _want_ to help us! They cry for us, and beg us to live on for all our sakes. They use all their power to protect what we need to survive, preserving what we need the most, even while everything else around them ages and decays." She paused there, tilting her head. "And it has worked in ways you may never even have considered. How old do you think I am?"

This had been nagging at the edge of Doumeki's mind since she'd first started talking to Kurogane. It didn't add up, but it hadn't been important.

"I was sixteen the day the world fell, but I live on untouched by time," Tomoyo declared. "I will live on—and they will keep me here—as long as the world still needs me. I am not gifted as your friends. I have never seen a single ghost nor been given any way to thank them, and yet they recognise me for all I would achieve. I firmly believe it is my duty and my destiny to use every day of the life that has been given to me in the service of everything they wished me to protect.

"Do you begin to understand? This power to communicate with the spirits of the dead was not something that arose by chance. People such as your friends were _meant_ to have it, and just as surely they are _meant_ to use it for so much more than they realise. Imagine if we could find a way to communicate to the spirits what we need. They could so easily guide and protect us on journeys longer than any we have ever dared to take. No living scout could compare with what they could do for us."

"It doesn't work that way," said Doumeki. Watanuki had only once tried to get something more than what his few reliable spirits had offered him. Doumeki hadn't forgotten it. He was never going to.

"An hour ago you would surely have told me the shield we have created was impossible," Tomoyo replied, unmoved. "Only time will tell how much more we may achieve, but to give up now is to surrender to imagined fears. Even your Watanuki understands that. He wants to help so very badly. Even when he was taken by gangs who would spare no thought for his welfare, he wanted to help. Here, there is a place for him like nothing beyond our walls. I am even prepared to extend the invitation further—to all of you. Even you, Doumeki, though you may feel you have little claim to it, I am sure we can find a place for you here. There is so much he can offer us, and so much we can offer him. If we can ease the decision for him by offering his friends a place by his side, it is the least we can do."

Tomoyo's eyes shone with a victory already assured. "With all that you now know, do you think he will want to leave?"

And there it was. They could sit here happily arguing about Tomoyo's claims of godhood, or what Watanuki might think about them for as long as they pleased, but there was only one possible way to answer. He now knew the reason Tomoyo had told him what he was about to do was far too dangerous to attempt, but he also knew at least one thing she—hopefully—did not.

"I'll go ask him," said Doumeki, and made a motion to start towards the door.

Tomoyo's brow creased, very slightly. "We will have to wait a while longer yet before that is possible. The ghost-storm within the sealed room has not yet ceased, and from our readings from the surviving equipment within that room, it may well continue yet for a number of hours. The event which destroyed the other Complex was of similar duration. To enter now would be suicide."

Doumeki shrugged. "I'll take my chances."

"I'm going too," said Syaoran. "Sakura's there, I can't just leave her."

"Please do not make the mistake of presuming your connection to those inside makes you invincible," Tomoyo begged them. "In their protective fury, those ghosts will make no distinction between friend or foe..."

"I know all that!" Syaoran barked, cutting her off. "You think I'm stupid. Think I don't understand all this, but I understand plenty. Sakura doesn't know that you evacuated this place, or about whatever you've done to that room to keep it safe. She's in there thinking something _she's_ doing is killing a whole lot of people. I'm not leaving her like that!"

"You have the very best of intentions," said Tomoyo fondly, "but for your own safety, I cannot allow you to do this."

A rustle and a few soft footsteps from behind the group betrayed that the two Syaoran clones by the door—motionless and all but forgotten—had each taken a deliberate step to place themselves in front of it, their expressions menacing. Syaoran's hands balled up into fists as he glared at them—to him, any threat was personal. He looked back at Tomoyo once, just long enough to make his point, then with barely two lightning-fast steps he'd launched himself clean across the room at the guards in front of the door.

The battle was swift and brutal, but not over before Doumeki had had the time to note that the two clones moved just the same way their Syaoran did—the very same style, all reflex and no thought at all—every bit as striking as their identical faces. But the clones had been raised in captivity, seeing no worse than training matches to hone their skills, whereas their Syaoran had lived most of his life in the deadlands and grown accustomed to fighting tooth and nail for survival long before Doumeki had even known him. Not even both the clones together were a match for him. Within seconds he'd laid both of them out unconscious on the floor.

"Any more?" he asked, glaring at Tomoyo from a crouch by the door. He was barely even breathing hard.

One of the Sakuras behind Tomoyo's chair had let out a gasp as she watched the fight, and the other was holding on to the chair back with a white knuckled grip, but Tomoyo herself had managed, for the most part, to maintain the impression of calm. "I have sent every other guard in my employ to the emergency bunkers with the rest of the evacuees. I have no means to stop you leaving this room, but I must beg you to rethink this. Nothing could hurt Watanuki more than knowing you had died as a result of his powers. Simply to convince him he does not want to stay here, this is far too drastic a step for you to take."

"I don't plan on dying," Doumeki told her. He could feel himself waiting to see whether she was going to tell him exactly how he planned on surviving the ghost storm, just as she'd known everything else there was to know about them, but for once, she didn't seem to have an answer. The thought he'd given her something to wonder about was uncomfortably satisfying.

"Shizuka..." said another voice—Fye's. He looked worried when Doumeki turned towards him, and Doumeki met his eye, willing him to understand. He couldn't, of course—not when Doumeki couldn't explain himself, and the concern did not entirely smooth away, but he would have to trust Doumeki's judgement on this one.

"There's a large lab room just around the corner from here," said Kurogane. "It's bound to be the one. Right at the first junction outside, second door on your right after that, but she'll have locked it. I'm not going to be much help to you beyond that."

Syaoran nodded. "Aa. We'll meet you back here."

"Kurogane, you must dissuade them," Tomoyo pleaded. "You must see you are sending all your campmates to their deaths if you let them do this."

"All?" said Fye, haughtily, snapping his attention back to her. "You think I'm going to abandon Kurogane here alone with you and your mind games, do you? I am quite sure the boys know what they are getting into, and I assure you I am staying right here. I do have one last question though," he added. "About Chi. Did you send her to the emergency bunkers too?"

"None of our computers were sent there," replied Tomoyo. "The ghosts pose much lesser threat to those who are not technically living in a manner they recognise. She is waiting in one of our labs for our technicians to return to work on her."

"Thank you," said Fye curtly. "That's all I wanted to know." He fished in his pocket and retrieved a small metallic device, smooth but for one irregularly shaped end which Doumeki vaguely recognised as a kind of plug Fye used when connecting some of his devices together. "If there's any proper security in this place the door will be electronic, which means an access panel, which means you'll find a jack for this at the bottom. Chi will take care of the rest."

"Perhaps if she has been connected to our systems..." Tomoyo started to say.

"If they think that can keep _my_ Chi out for long," Fye cut in with no small amount of pride, "then they underestimate me."

Doumeki took the device with a nod, slipping it into a pocket. Syaoran was already waiting by the door.

"There is nothing I can do to dissuade the two of you from this path?" asked Tomoyo, sadly.

"You've done more than enough," said Kurogane. He turned to Doumeki and Syaoran, every inch the leader they'd looked to for so long. "Go on. Don't keep them waiting."

Doumeki nodded and followed Syaoran out the door.


	25. Book 3-7

Doumeki hesitated just beyond the doorway and had to make himself remember Kurogane's directions. They'd been simple enough, but buildings like this weren't familiar territory to him, and something about all these enclosed corridors was disorienting. However, Syaoran surged on past him to the first corner, confident as if he'd lived here all his life—or a lifetime ago. Doumeki wondered whether that helped.

It was a bit late to wonder whether either of them knew what they were getting into, but on short acquaintance with Tomoyo, it seemed safe to guess the only way to beat her at her own game was to raise the stakes.

The reality was that he didn't know whether this was going to work. It was a long shot, based entirely on an incident when Watanuki, trying and largely failing to account for why his scavenging missions turned bad so fast when Doumeki left the camp, had once said something about Doumeki repelling evil spirits. To be more exact, he'd said the kind that 'only wanted to make trouble wouldn't go anywhere near him'. He could remember that conversation word for word, and had hardly understood half of what Watanuki had meant. He hadn't been born on any special day; didn't have any unusual powers that he'd ever been aware of. Even Watanuki probably couldn't have told him where he could step into that room and survive (though he almost definitely would have called Doumeki a suicidal moron for considering it, which wouldn't have been unfair). But he'd sounded awed when he'd spoken about it, reluctant to attribute such a power to Doumeki; and reluctant to admit it existed at all. Doumeki had no way to be certain quite what sort of trump card he was carrying, but this had to be worth a shot.

The door took some finding, if only because it didn't look much like a door in any sense Doumeki was familiar with—no handles or hinges, just a wide, sunken panel set in a recess in the wall. But it did have the promised access panel—similar in design to the one they'd seen on the trapdoor outside. An indentation in the bottom looked like the jack they'd been directed to find. Syaoran looked up at Doumeki expectantly.

Doumeki stuck a hand in his pocket, finding the angular edges of Fye's device with his fingers. "Are you sure about this?" he asked. For all their show of bravado in Tomoyo's presence, Syaoran didn't have the slightest idea why he had thought either of them could make it through this. Doumeki was taking enough of a gamble on his own part; there was no reason to assume that protection might extend to Syaoran too.

"I could ask you the same," Syaoran returned.

"I'm not sure," Doumeki admitted. "She wasn't exaggerating the danger. At the last two places I saw where one of these ghost-storms happened, no-one survived."

"I've done it before," said Syaoran. He sounded perfectly matter of fact.

That wasn't anything Doumeki could have expected, but it was, he reflected, turning into a day for that sort of surprise. "Something you just remembered?"

Syaoran nodded. "Something like this happened to Sakura, a long time ago."

"It's not just Sakura in there this time," Doumeki pointed out.

"I know. It might not work the same way this time, but I have to try." He looked up at Doumeki, suddenly very open. "You're counting on something too, aren't you?"

In lieu of an answer, Doumeki pulled Fye's device out, slotted it home, and waited.

* * *

Chi had never been inside a Complex before. Fye had salvaged the form she wore from and old persocom model he'd found on a junk heap in the first days he'd spent out in the deadlands; her first real memories came later, once she'd been rebuilt. However, her core components, smuggled out of another Complex long ago, had recorded more than just key-codes and protocols. Stored within were records of a place much like this, that to Chi were as good as sense-memory. And here there were more computers than she'd ever been aware existed before—like old friends. Like family.

_Welcome home_ , they whispered to her.

_No,_ she whispered back. _This isn't home. The deadlands are home. Fye is home. Kurogane and the others are home._

The chatter grew less coherent, some voices repeating the welcome home, some buzzing with questions, _who is Fye?_ or _what is Kurogane?_ and _can you hear?_ but Chi let it all wash over herself, cyber-dreams and static. She did what she had been built to do; she sat and listened, and she waited until a message that mattered came through—one just for her. 

One that said, _Fye had come_. And he had a task for her: a doorway to be opened, and a hint—just enough—to let her find him.

In a darkened lab room that should have been locked tight, Chi opened her eyes and got to her feet, delicately pulling two useless data jamming devices from her ears.

_Home_ she whispered, and there was a buzzing from some of the others that may have been just a little like envy.

* * *

When the shapes of the two boys had vanished down the corridor, Tomoyo made one last attempt at her variety of reason. "Are you sure it is alright to let them go? There is still time to stop them. It is a needless risk they take, and if they do not return, you will have cursed yourselves ever after with the knowledge you could have prevented it."

"Oh, stop that," Fye complained. "For someone who's so good at inspiring blind faith, you're not very good at seeing it placed in other people. Shizuka is hardly younger than I was when my family was sentenced to exile, and children grow up a lot faster on the outside. A lot more than many of the adults here are ever allowed to grow up, I daresay. As for Syaoran, you've underestimated him once already."

"Your words only mask how very scared for them you truly are," said Tomoyo, and Fye faltered slightly under the force of her attention. "You want to believe in your friends, but you know as well as I that your desire to contradict me is influencing your judgement. None of us want to see blood spilled this day. If I did not count on seeing my guards so easily disabled by your Syaoran, it is only because I had hoped I would not need to use force; I know so well that none of you are needlessly violent by nature. All I have underestimated is the determination of your young friends."

"You're asking us to believe you have a way people can survive whatever's happening in there," said Kurogane, picking up from Fye with barely a lost beat. "Why shouldn't we have one too?"

Tomoyo tapped a finger on the armrest of her chair impatiently. "Because that is a fundamentally flawed comparison. There is no likeness between the resources at your camp and those at my disposal, and you know better than to suggest otherwise."

"Not as flawed as you think. We're the ones who've had the April Fool living with us for months," said Kurogane. "Doumeki knows Watanuki better than anyone. He's seen the worst the April Fools can do. If he thinks he can make it, he's got a reason."

"And that is enough for you to let you let them go, without following, into such needless danger?"

Kurogane was undaunted. "What they're doing is proving a point. They didn't need me or Fye to do that. I stayed here because when they get back, we're leaving, and I want to get this conversation over with."

* * *

Lights on Fye's device flickered on and off in repetitive patterns. Doumeki and Syaoran were just starting to wonder whether anything else was going to happen when there was a beep followed by a whirring noise, and then door began to slide open. A faint whistle-hum that they'd both disregarded as background noise since entering the corridor suddenly rose in pitch, growing louder with every new inch of doorway revealed. By the time it was halfway open the hum had become a howl so loud they could hear nothing else, the room within utterly obscured behind a seething whirlwind of unidentifiable shapes, racing and changing far too fast for any human eye to identify; a dizzying kaleidoscope of corpse-colours. It was like staring into the centre of a hurricane at midnight; the doorway to a whole other world.

Inasmuch as Doumeki had expected anything, he'd expected something like this. Locked doors didn't keep ghosts out, and if opening this door had been enough to undermine the whole containment, Tomoyo would surely have let them know. It also stood to reason that if ghosts in this state could cause the level of damage he'd seen the day they'd found Kohane, some facet would be visible to even the likes of him, but Doumeki felt— _knew_ , on a level that came right from his marrow, that he shouldn't be seeing this. This was a sight that should only have ever been for Watanuki and his like, or for people who were about to die.

Over the howl of the wind came Syaoran's voice, like it was far further off than it should have been. "Somewhere in there, right?"

Doumeki nodded, not trusting his voice to carry. He didn't realise he was hesitating until Syaoran stepped forward ahead of him; with not even an outstretched to test the way in front. Syaoran flinched involuntarily on contact with the threshold, the full body shiver of someone encountering terrible cold, then there was a fizz of indescribable light marking out an eerie halo around his body. For a strange moment just before the darkness swallowed him completely Doumeki almost thought he saw the afterimage of a dozen Syaorans rather than one, then the angry winds closed again and he was gone.

This was it, the absolute last chance to turn back. Any more waiting was pure procrastination.

Doumeki breathed in and stepped forward into the maelstrom.

* * *

"However you may choose to express it, there is some truth to that sentiment," Tomoyo allowed. "There is still much we need to discuss."

"We can start with how long you've had my camp under surveillance." Kurogane's demand came out sounding like the accusation it was, but Tomoyo refused to react in any more than her usual muted tones.

"Is that really what you wish to ask? You must already know why," she said, gazing at him with a disarming expression of fondness. "Would it be easier for you if I hated you as much as you must have convinced yourself you hated me? Please believe me Kurogane, you are no less dear to me today than the first day I took you into my service. I was saddened so greatly by your departure, but the intervening years have never reduced the depth of my affection for you. I have long kept watch over your camp from afar, it is true. After all you had put yourself through, how could I possibly have abandoned you? Still punishing yourself for the accident of Souma's death after all these years, still believing there was no going back, that I could never forgive you..."

"That isn't why I left," said Kurogane, voice devoid of emotion. "You know that."

"Dear Kurogane," said Tomoyo firmly, "you have been so conflicted, so confused for so long; can you say even you yourself completely understand why it is you left? But I do not blame you for that. Sometimes, it is necessary even for the best of us to take a step away from our life's work, simply so that we can rediscover the reason it meant so much to us to begin with. We can return refreshed and more certain for our trials than ever before."

Kurogane glared at her with unreserved distaste; his next was spoken through his teeth. "Are you really convinced that's why I left?"

"It may be hard to hear, but you cannot deny it." Her face was so open, so understanding, that it was easy to believe that only great restraint was keeping her from crossing the room so that she could look directly up into his eyes and take his hands in hers, just as she wished to. 

"It's not true!" Kurogane snapped. "You can't make it true just by _deciding_ it should be so!"

"What else would you expect me to conclude? I know you too well; I cannot believe you truly have it in yourself to hate me. You are far too clever not to understand everything I have done for the Complexes—even that which you sometimes questioned—for the necessity it is. Yet, something has upset you, so grievously that you would leave without so much as saying goodbye, without so much as a word to me."

Kurogane looked away. "There was nothing to discuss."

"Nothing at all? Can you stand before me now and tell me that was fair, after all the trust I placed in you? Can you tell me that you would have denied me any chance to persuade you otherwise, had you truly felt no doubt about your course?" There was a pleading note to Tomoyo's voice that was painful to hear.

"I didn't talk to you about it because I knew what you would say." He sounded suddenly too tired for whatever emotion this topic was evoking. "Every argument we ever had was me telling you why. You didn't want to hear it."

"We argued about many things," said Tomoyo, perhaps just a little confused. "If you must call it that, but whatever the source of your unease was, I was always ready to listen and discuss it with you for however long you needed. We left nothing unresolved."

"It was always the same thing," said Kurogane. "Even if you wouldn't see it. I left because it was an argument I didn't want to keep having. You were never going to understand that. Everything you'd ever built depended on it."

Tomoyo looked at him sadly. "After all this time, that is still all the explanation you feel I have any right to?"

For the first time in several minutes, Kurogane stopped looking away. "That's what you brought me back to pay for, didn’t you?"

* * *

The doorway was lost an unknown time and distance behind him, the swirling mists long since closed on every side, when Syaoran felt something catch and tear, then slowly begin to come away. It didn't hurt; he couldn't have identified what he'd lost—not skin or hair, nor anything so integrally part of himself, but there was still something—something whose existence was revealed to him only by its absence—being steadily ripped away from him. The sensation continued as he moved a couple of paces further on, until finally whatever it was came loose altogether and flapped off out of sight and mind, like losing a cloak or shoe. Syaoran ignored the sensation. He called out Sakura's name with every breath he could spare; in the hurricane the noise barely carried past his own lips. Winds buffeted him every which way at once, and somehow by their combined efforts kept him standing. Mysterious tearing sensations were far from being foremost on his mind.

A few paces further something else began tearing free. Syaoran staggered on.

* * *

Sakura kept imagining she heard Syaoran calling her name. She curled in on herself tighter, wrapped her arms around her head and pressed her face to her knees; not looking, not listening—telling herself she couldn't hear anything at all. She'd never been able to hear the ghosts when they tried to speak to her; now being trapped in this room with this nightmare was like judgement for all her years of wilfull deafness. Every silent cry she'd ever seen uttered from unreadable ghost-lips, screaming in her ears all together. The howling might have been a thousand different voices, so fast and loud and horrible that even now she couldn't understand one single word, and in there she could have believed she heard the voice of every person she'd ever known and loved screaming and dying. That couldn't be Syaoran's voice, because his was the one she wanted to hear, and dreaded most of all.

Something brushed Sakura's head—someone's hand, so unexpected that not even the need to shrink and hide could stop her from jerking up to see. Before she could focus, her hands were being taken in someone else's and the motion of looking up had turned into her being pulled to her feet with a stumble. It was Syaoran standing in front of her—the thought registered barely a moment before she saw that he was nearly transparent, the hands on hers cold and barely substantial: a ghost—of course it was a ghost. It didn't mean anything; there'd always been so many of them waiting in the corners of every room she'd ever set foot in last time she was in this place. The pale Syaoran staring solemnly into her eyes while she regained her balance was only one of so many, it didn't even need to be one of the ones that had haunted...

Sakura let out a strangled gasp and stumbled forward, right through the ghost who'd come to pull her to her feet; by then already fading and losing his hard-won equilibrium to the storm around them. Knowing only that she had to go, she forged on though she could hardly see anything, didn't know where she was or whether she'd already been turned around in the confusion. There was no time to wonder, but by the time she was really moving, there were more familiar hands reaching out to her, more faces half-glimpsed in the darkness, pulling and pushing her along, one after another, the next always appearing as the last faded, always firm but gentle, offering all the strength they could muster to guide her.

When Sakura found Syaoran his last very ghost was almost torn away and he was on his knees, still trying to move forward. He didn't even seem to see her until she had all but fallen onto him, arms stretched out to clutch him to her. For the second time in her life she begged the ghosts to leave him alone, not to take him from her; one voice too small to be heard in the midst of a million more, too loud to hear.

"Sakura," she heard him say, lips an inch from her ear. He didn't sound scared, not when she was right there, and she begged all the harder as she held on.

* * *

"You've given us plenty of reasons why you raided our camp, but were any of them real?" Kurogane looked Tomoyo straight in the eye with growing distaste. "Just how much of this was really about forcing me to come back to you?"

If Tomoyo's mask had slipped even a little during their last topic, it was restored within the space of a thought. "Let me answer that with another question. You came here for your campmates, that is true, but was it not also, in some small way, for the chance to see me? Was it not because you knew the time had come for you to finally resolve a matter you have so long avoided?"

There was, apparently, really no end to how furious she could make him. "You didn't give me any choice."

"Nor did you give any choice to me. You would not have returned for any less."

"So now this is all my fault?"

"Kurogane, there is no need to speak of fault or blame for the path that has brought us here. There is nothing you have done that I could not forgive you. If your purpose was to test how much you mean to me, knowing that you must share my love with so many others—if this is your need to know how much I could forgive you, then it is a test you must see I will not fail. There is no-one who knows you so well as I, or who could ever care for you so much. I could forgive you anything."

"Then this is the one thing you shouldn't have forgiven me," said Kurogane, reaching the very end of his patience. "I betrayed you. It didn't matter to me whether it hurt you. Can't you see that?"

There was a disarmingly long pause, Tomoyo looking soulfully across the room to where Kurogane stood. "Please, Kurogane. The manner of your departure gave neither of us closure. You must have always known that a confrontation like this would come. That some day you would be asked to return and answer for yourself. You would need to decide whether you truly had it in your heart to walk away a second time, and that is what you face today. Am I wrong?"

"I don't know," said Kurogane darkly. "I never know, with you. That's most of the problem."

Tomoyo opened her mouth to speak again, but before she could get any further Fye was throwing up his arms in frustration and waving them both into silence.

"What I think Kurogane is trying to say here, even if he might be messing it up a bit in the telling," he said, "is that no matter how you turn things, what he's figured out is that he doesn't _need_ you. None of us need you, or your Complexes or any other part of this. And Kurogane's come all this way back here now, and all he's learned is how much he never needed you to begin with. Perhaps the _world_ needs you, that's not for me to judge, but we're not the big picture. We're just a handful of people, trying to make our own way. As you were saying, the world can't afford to have all its eggs in one basket nowadays. He and I have tried your way, and we've found it doesn't suit us. So we'd much rather go back to our own."

Kurogane was looking at Fye in surprise, but nothing like disagreement, and for once, Tomoyo did not immediately have an answer. She regarded Fye, seriously but with no disrespect, for long enough to be sure he was finished, and only then turned to Kurogane.

"Maybe you're right in part," Kurogane allowed grudgingly, speaking to Tomoyo. "It never did quite feel like it was over. Maybe I have just been ignoring that all this time. But I'm here now, and nothing's changed since I left. The only thing I ever regretted was not leaving sooner."

Kurogane took a breath, eyes drifting closed, and opened them again with new resolve.

"Fye's right," he said, "and I've never once changed your mind on anything. It doesn't make any difference whether I'm here or not. You don't need me."

"And with all due respect, Madam Tomoyo," said Fye, tired despite his determination, "I think our friends are about to prove for us that they don't need you either."

* * *

Doumeki found Kohane first. She was sitting on the floor, practically catatonic. She stared right through him when he stepped in front of her, her mouth moving soundlessly. When Doumeki knelt down to try to get her attention, he thought he caught 'mother' and '...again, not again...' He had to shake her twice before he could even get her to look at him, and when she did, she flinched under his hand. The blank look she had before directed into space now turned to him with barely any other change to her expression.

"No," Doumeki told her, guessing. "I'm not a ghost."

The words took a beat to sink in, then Kohane was mouthing his name in relief and reaching for the hand Doumeki had resting on her shoulder and, finding it solid, grasping on to it with more force than Doumeki would have credited to her small frame, like it was a lifeline.

It may have been cruel to press on without offering her more in the way of comfort, but Doumeki was ill-equipped for it. He could give her something to focus on instead.

"I need you to help me find him. Can you do that?"

* * *

Watanuki had lost all track of time. Appropriate, what with the world ending around him. Ending _again_. And it wasn't even his birthday.

He couldn't quite tell whether he'd laughed at that. Times like this you found out how close to interchangeable laughing and crying were—it was all one outlet or another. It would have been relieving to stretch out and laugh the rest of his strength away. It would have been comforting to give into madness, but there was still too much of Watanuki that knew exactly what was going on here; knew that somewhere out there beyond what he could see, however many hundred (thousand?) strange people who'd lived in this citadel were dead or dying. He and Sakura and Kohane would wake up in a graveyard of their own making—and the best they could hope for might be that it would be theirs too. 

Or maybe they never would wake up from this. Maybe the storm would go on forever, and these crazy, overprotective ghosts would go on holding onto them while thrusting all the rest of the world away. Why should he assume this was ever going to end?

Watanuki didn't know whether he believed he'd be that lucky, or unlucky, or whichever it should have been. All he was sure of was that there would be no waking up from this, that everything around him was horribly, nightmarishly real. A voice somewhere above him said, "Oi."

When Watanuki wasted a moment making sense of that, the voice said it again, louder.

Watanuki looked up.

Doumeki, allowing for the light and the miasma, looked much as he always did after a long day being led in circles across the countryside, following Watanuki and his ghosts and wondering whether it was going to pay off. He looked tired, fed up down to his last reserves of his patience, and ready to go home. He was so solid and real it bordered on obscene; it could almost make you believe he could deflect bullets, or perhaps even the angry dead, merely by glaring at them. He was the most wonderful thing Watanuki had ever seen.

Doumeki rubbed one of his ears. "Can't you turn this down a bit?"

Watanuki blinked at him, not even sure what he'd heard, and almost got as far as gathering the breath to express just what an _insane_ thing that was to expect him to be able to do—and then with barely a whisper, found they were standing in a brightly lit, white-walled room, maybe three metres square, with not a ghost in sight. Doumeki looked around it and frowned, apparently having some difficulty making sense of the two or three short paces that separated where they were standing and the door.

His attention was back again before Watanuki could begin to feel neglected. "You alright?" he asked. "Get up. We're going home."

Watanuki found the strength to get to his feet from somewhere, threw his arms around Doumeki and hugged him for all he was worth. He felt Doumeki's arms wrap around him in turn, but decided he wasn't feeling mollified.

"You!" he yelled into Doumeki's shoulder. "Youyouyou are the craziest insufferable moron on this side of the planet how... don't you realise it's impossible for you to be here! You could've been _killed! Should've_ been killed, _don't you get it!_ "

"Wasn't," Doumeki replied mildly. "Do you want me to apologise for that?"

" _What are you doing here?_ " Watanuki demanded, trying very hard to crush the remaining air out of Doumeki's lungs.

"Rescuing you," said Doumeki. "Thought that was obvious."

Watanuki let go long enough to hit him. Later on he was going to be embarrassed about that outburst, or just mad he couldn't tear off all Doumeki's clothes right away to make sure it was really him, but at the time it was all he could do to go back to sobbing on Doumeki's shoulder. He might never have let go, but then there was someone hugging his leg who turned out to be Kohane, so he had to let go of Doumeki long enough to hug her too, and then decide whether he still needed to hug Doumeki again. By that point he still wasn't clear yet on whether any of this was really happening, but had shakily gotten himself to face the fact that they weren't going to stay here forever (hadn’t Doumeki already said something about leaving?)—and sooner or later, some of this, somewhere, was bound to start making some kind of sense. And then he'd need to have a very involved talk with Doumeki about doing the impossible.

From what passed as a far corner in the small room, Syaoran was coming towards them, carrying Sakura in his arms. He looked shaken and paler than Watanuki had ever seen him before ("like a ghost" or "like he'd seen a ghost" would have been typical adjectives if Watanuki hadn't been too personally familiar with what both of those really looked like to make the comparison), and Sakura showed no signs of waking, but Syaoran was holding her steady and (naturally) looked quite prepared to carry her across the country like that if necessary.

"She was like this when it all stopped," he said, "but she's breathing and her skin's warm. I.." he had to take a breath there, "I think she's alright." He obviously wasn't going to listen anything to the contrary.

Doumeki nodded. "That's everyone. Time to go."

Chi was waiting patiently by the door when they left the room, calm and innocent as if this sort of thing happened every day.

"Fye?" she asked, polite and inquisitive, when she saw he wasn't with them.

"This way," Doumeki told her, indicating with a shrug of a shoulder. Chi fell into step behind them without another word.


	26. Book 3-8

The return of the assorted rescuers and rescue-ees would have been more dramatic if the door to Tomoyo's chamber hadn't been left wide open, or if it hadn't been so quiet that everyone's footsteps hadn't been audible before they'd even rounded the corner. The sight, however, could scarcely have benefited from better scripting. Sakura was still unconscious, but even slumped awkwardly in Syaoran's arms she looked peaceful. She must have weighed nearly as much as he did, but he would let no-one else take her weight, supporting her through stubbornness alone. Doumeki had Kohane supported in his arms and hanging on around his neck, though she was far more awake than Sakura and almost too big to be carried that way. Watanuki followed on his own feet, dazed but unhurt, all but attached to Doumeki at the hip, and genuinely latched by one hand onto the fabric of Doumeki’s shirt like it was the only thing keeping him anchored. Fye waited until Chi had stopped right in front of him before pulling her into a hug that swept her off her feet, spinning her around and finally returning her to the ground with an easy smile—and something that she returned with only the faintest look of uncertainty over why he was so happy to see her. Every one of them was very much alive.

"No trouble?" Kurogane asked, as if Doumeki had returned from nothing more unusual than some routine recon trip.

"Nothing to report," Doumeki replied. Watanuki peered blankly into the room from behind him, spotting Tomoyo and the extra Sakuras for the first time, but there'd be better times for that conversation.

"Well," said Fye, speaking to Tomoyo. "That is that. Quite nicely timed on their parts too, don't you agree? It has been lovely to have this little chat with you," (the word 'chat' came out with perhaps slightly more emphasis than was pleasant) "but I think it's high time we took our leave."

"I cannot stop you leaving," said Tomoyo, with no small regret, "But it is nothing but a relief to see you all alive and well, to know that your faith was not misplaced. I must confess, I had not truly appreciated what remarkable people Kurogane had found to call his friends. My offer to find each of you a place to stay here is still open. There must be so much every one of you could do contribute here—so much you could do to help us. If you should ever find it in yourselves to change your minds, you will always be welcome here."

"We're not going to be able to talk you out of that, are we?" Fye said vaguely, rubbing his neck.

"We wouldn't be allowed to walk out if she couldn't give us that much to take home," said Kurogane, little more than a mutter to his companions, then speaking louder, said, "Goodbye, Tomoyo. You won't accept it, but you won't accuse me of leaving without saying it this time."

For all the emotion it had conjured previously, Tomoyo's face was left for once unreadable, and she stared at her departing advisor just a little too long before replying. "Farewell, Kurogane. I wish you all the best."

"What was that all about?" Watanuki hissed in Doumeki's ear as they filed back out the door. "Who _was_ that person in there?"

Doumeki considered how to answer, then shrugged. "No-one with anything important to say."

* * *

It wasn't precisely over there, not when they still had the return journey to make. Yuzuriha was waiting to meet them outside with all her exhausting cheerfulness. The birds themselves, already flown halfway across the country and now asked to carry close to twice the load on the way back, were not so accommodating, and had to be rested more frequently during the return flight. There was plenty of time to fill Watanuki and the girls in on the circumstances of their rescue on the way, and for once in his life, Fye had very little need to embellish any details.

Flying did not particularly agree with Watanuki. It probably wouldn't have agreed with him even if he hadn't already been through enough traumatising new experiences in the last twenty four hours to last a lifetime, though that might not have been strictly why he held on to Doumeki all the time they were airborne.

After that, dealing with Fuuma for the first time when finally they got home should have been far more than anyone deserved.

* * *

There was an electrified security fence surrounding the perimeter of the camp, cunningly camouflaged to look like little more than an easily-scaled barrier of piled junk to the untrained eye. Subtle enough to trap a gullible interloper, but no serious obstacle.

The camp within was small and dusty, a cluster of low, acid-eaten building kept in only as much repair as it took to keep them standing. It looked like an easy target, but also like a target too poor to have much worth taking. Like the fence, it was a simple, tasteless illusion, that did little to damp his disdain for the notion anyone would choose to live in squalor like this. All was quiet as he walked between the buildings, the empty silence of a place deserted by all who called it home; or at least until a voice behind him commented, "Snooping around while the family is out, Kamui?"

Kamui did not startle and didn't bother turning right away, though he did grind his teeth together quietly. He'd learned not to be surprised at hearing that voice out of the blue years ago. "The 'family' are less than an hour's journey away from us. You are here for the same reason as I."

"Well, our Yuzuriha's done a lot for them, and they will have had quite a day. I do have a vested interest in finding out whether my investment has paid off," said Fuuma, with a smirk Kamui could _hear_. "We wouldn't want Kurogane forgetting to stop by the Tower to settle up the details of our deal."

When Kaumi turned around, Fuuma was slouched against the side of a building as though he'd been there all day, though he certainly hadn't been there two minutes ago. "Assuming they have met their objective, I will have as much reason to remind them of that debt as you."

"Ah, that's right," said Fuuma casually, "You were offering to cancel out that awkward little matter as incentive for my help with this. Still so eager to be rid of that?" 

Kamui made a point of ignoring the question. "Though if your treasured birds haven't brought them back, I don't see that I'll have much cause to consider that debt repaid."

"Harsh, Kamui. If Yuzuriha's methods of transportation are the worst challenge they've faced, I expect they'll be counting themselves lucky. We had better hope they had some basis for all that confidence." 

"You doubt their success?" Preventing these conversations from devolving to a point that would make an awful mess of the surroundings usually did require selectively not hearing a good deal of what Fuuma said.

Fuuma shrugged, as if to suggest he wasn't too concerned one way or the other. "We'll know soon. Kurogane is the sort of man who has a decent idea of his own means."

"He knows his own value to you and me as well. Too well for comfort. No-one else would have dared ask us a favour like that one," said Kamui bitterly. 

"Hm," said Fuuma. "I will grant you that point. It's not so comfortable for the likes of us to be relying on an outside camp this like, is it?"

"Of course not," Kamui snapped. "We have all become far too accustomed to the storm warnings they provide for our own safety, and yet we have no other way to obtain them. It is shameful how dependent we have become. And look where it has gotten us!"

"Did you ever think of offering them a permanent place at the Diet Building?" Fuuma asked conversationally.

"Even if I had, they would not have accepted. They're too fond of their independence."

"All too true. For all that Kurogane pretends to be indifferent to leadership, he'll never be satisfied with taking instructions from anyone else again. And if they joined one of us or the other, it would only throw everything out of balance." Fuuma smiled off into the distance. "Given the sort of attention they've been attracting lately, we may have regretted that by now anyway.

"Then again," he added thoughtfully, "I wonder how long this way of life of theirs might last? There may come a time when even their weather reports are not the commodity they used to be. We don't get half the acid storms today that we saw five years ago, and five years from now..."

"...they will be twice as rare again, and knowing when one is due will be worth five times as much," Kamui finished. "They should worry more about whether they will still be able to deliver."

"But you must admit they do make the landscape more interesting," mused Fuuma, then he glanced up, his expression levelling out. "Now, what could that be?"

With the reluctance of someone used to assuming everything was a trick, Kamui looked over his shoulder to see four small dots appearing in the sky above.

* * *

Really, after the day everyone had had, Fuuma was more than any of them deserved to have to deal with, let alone both him and Kamui at once. However, by the time the travellers were coming in to land, eyes drawn inexorably towards the welcome sight of home, the figures of the two interlopers had been inevitably spotted and just as easily identified. Few others would have dared to do what they were doing so openly.

Yuzuriha saw it all a bit differently. "Fuuma!" she called as soon as her mount had landed, waving to him from her perch on its neck. "You came all this way to greet us?"

"Oh, that and to bring them the bike they left behind at the Tower," Fuuma added, as if casual favours were nothing out of character. "So, how did it all go? Find everything you were looking for?"

The question was more directed at the others, who had fared generally worse for the long flight, but Yuzuriha beat them to the answer. "It went great! These guys found all the friends they went to look for, and we got them all back in one piece. We've never flown nearly this far before but the birds all managed just fine, even if they are going to need to sleep for a week when we get back. I'm so proud of them!"

Kurogane dismounted stiffly, holding onto what poise he could still muster out of grim necessity. "Whatever favours we owe don't include permission to trespass on our camp as you please." He shot a look at Kamui, justifiably suspicious about the odds that any place those two met would still be intact by the time they left, though for the moment, both seemed to be doing a determined job of ignoring the fact the other was there.

Fuuma gave the satisfied smile of a man who had been made to endure a good deal and was now looking forward to being able to name his price. "Hard to be sure, when we never did get as far as discussing what the value of this favour was going to be."

"Fine," said Kurogane, too tired to argue, but not too tired to negotiate.

Watanuki all but fell from his own saddle, well beyond having the energy to be relieved to be back on solid ground, and froze as he found himself looking Kamui right in the eye. He wasn't wearing any kind of eye patch, and the dead white of his sightless eye was as good as a name tag.

Doumeki hopped down from his own saddle to stand beside him as Kamui treated this new member of Kurogane's camp to a considering look. Apparently finding nothing worthy of further interest, he let his attention drift on to the other unfamiliar camp members. "What a collection you have here," he muttered disdainfully to no-one in particular.

Watanuki looked so stunned that Doumeki wondered whether he was actually a little insulted to be so easily dismissed. He gave Watanuki's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Don't you think they'd have tracked you down years ago if they were interested?"

Watanuki appeared to be pretending he hadn't heard him. If Kamui's reaction ought to have prompted some relief, he may well have been past caring when he'd already had his world turned upside down so many times in the space of one day.

Kamui continued to treat Fye, Chi and Kohane to more cursory inspection as they dismounted around him, with barely even that for the familiar sight of Syaoran. Sakura, dismounting last of all, took a stumble on landing back on solid ground, stepped forward again while finding her feet, and looked up to find herself staring almost straight up into Kamui's face. He stared back in mild surprise as Sakura blinked up at him, seemingly unsure whether it would be more or less rude to step away at this point.

"You're... Kamui from the Diet Building, aren't you?" she asked shyly. 

"Aa..." Kamui replied vaguely, not sure what to make of her.

Sakura dropped into a respectful bow. "Syaoran told me what you did to help us get home. Thank you, from all of us."

"It's... nothing you need to thank me for," said Kamui awkwardly, touched and not sure what to do about it. Doumeki wondered for the first time whether their old decision to keep Sakura far away from chores like dealing with the like of Kamui and Fuuma had ever been as wise or as necessary as they'd let themselves assume.

It was certainly a day for revelation.

The matter of the value of the camp's gratitude certainly wasn't 'nothing' to Kamui, which was more than evident shortly after he joined Fuuma and Kurogane's negotiations over just how many months it would be before they had to pay for a storm warning again. The number shuffled up and down in increments; Fuuma was accused of being unnecessarily difficult, and most of the rest of the camp filed away into their respective quarters to leave them to it. Kurogane bore it all with the determination of a man who ran out of patience for this sort of debate years ago but knew that showing it would only make everything take all the longer.

Finally, all relevant agreements were reached, and Fuuma told Kurogane where his bike was and swung himself up on one of Yuzuriha's unladen birds in preparation to leave.

"Need a ride home, Kamui?" he called suddenly.

"I can make my own way," was the unsurprisingly blunt response.

"Something worth being proud of," Fuuma commented with unusually sincerity. He may have said more, but it was lost to under the sound of wing-beats as the tired birds made their way back for one last trip through the sky.

* * *

With their 'guests' gone, Kurogane could allow that everything was, in every way that needed to be dealt with today, finally over. It was going to take at least a day or two more for it all to sink in properly; before he could be sure just how much had been irrevocably changed. Exhausted, but far too tired and wound up to sleep, it had been a day of far too much upheaval for the familiar to offer much comfort just yet.

Fye's habit of taking any opportunity to invade his personal space was both familiar, and ordinarily far from comforting, but for once, Kurogane couldn't resent him for following his leader back to his hut. They'd need to have this conversation sooner or later—they'd already been putting it off for years. 

Fye slumped by the doorway, and looked around the room as though having similar thoughts. "So much excitement, and all we have to show for it is a return to the status quo. What a waste," he smiled ruefully. "Here we are, very probably the only people ever to beat Tomoyo herself at her own game, and there's no-one within a hundred miles who we can show off to about it."

Kurogane may have been too tired for this conversation after all. "You think that counted as beating her?"

Fye quirked an eyebrow. "Considering that we let her lead us all that way, and still got out again despite her best attempts to convince us otherwise, _yes_ , I think that's a victory worth savouring."

"That doesn't mean much," said Kurogane bitterly. "We never would have got out of there if she hadn't decided to let us go."

"Oh, no doubt about it," Fye agreed without hesitation. "She was so convincing one could almost believe it was no more than what she planned for all along. But there wasn't any other way she could have lost gracefully, not once we'd made it so very clear to her that there was nothing she could say to make us stay."

Kurogane had nothing to say to that. Fye took on a distinct look of surprise. "My goodness, you're not still feeling guilty about leaving, are you? Even after you were just reminded of everything she put you through."

"She wasn't wrong," said Kurogane, awkwardly trying to express something that had never stopped nagging at him. "I never liked her methods, but... the Complexes were something that needed to be done, and it probably couldn't have worked without her."

"But you said it yourself right to her face," Fye sounded increasingly exasperated, "she doesn't _need_ you. Oh, she may very well have _claimed_ she needed someone to give her judgements the critique they deserved, but I would bet anything you care to name that all she ever wanted was a personal sounding board. One who could be counted on to point out every possible objection to her crazy ideas, and let her practice her justifications in private before the general populace got hold of them. Nowadays, I imagine she's had to get used to being her own harshest critic, and that _isn't_ as easy as you'd think. Especially when you've made a career out of making your obfuscations so good that even you start believing them. I doubt it mattered whether she was right or wrong, just as long as no-one questioned her. If you really feel the need to go back to being a crash-test-dummy for new kinds of psychological manipulation, then I'm going to have to tie you down and beat some sense into you myself!"

Fye was almost panting by the time he was done. Kurogane wondering how long he'd been sitting on that little outburst. Years? "Those are bold words from someone who only met her in person a day ago."

Fye gave another wry smile. "You were probably too close to her to notice how she loomed over the lives of everyone else—even in the other Complexes, where we might only see her once or twice a lifetime. Besides," he went on, in a more wistful tone, "one can't help but pick up a certain appreciation for the art of a fellow master of spin and obfuscation, when you've spent your life acting as your own impostor. Gives you a certain perspective on whether the society you grew up in was really the beacon of hope everyone else takes it for too, for that matter."

Kurogane caught his eye and let himself hold it for longer than he'd ever let himself before over the years of their acquaintance. "You knew right from the start, didn't you?"

"Who you were?" asked Fye. "Of course. It would take more than an ugly new outfit to disguise a face like yours. You spent far too many years at Tomoyo's side to avoid making yourself recognisable, Kuro-dear."

It was true, though he'd never given his own image much thought. "I wouldn't have thought people paid any attention to the guards standing next to her."

"She didn't outshine you as much as you imagine," Fye said fondly. "The Flowrights' tale might have been from outside your own Complex, but that didn't keep you from taking note of a few faces, either, did it? But then there we were, finally having our fateful meeting out in the middle of nowhere like the lost souls we are—and you so set on pretending you had no idea who I was that it was all I could do to play along."

Put that way it did seem silly that Kurogane had avoided the subject for so long—excepting one detail. "Which one were you?"

Fye blinked, uncomprehending. 

"You used to have a brother," Kurogane reminded him. Fye's expression slipped, not quite enough to make Kurogane regret asking, but enough to prove he'd hit a mark.

"Oh yes. I did, didn't I? And a father too—even a mother once, much longer ago. As for which of us I was..." Fye shook his head, "would you believe I don't remember? One of us was called Yuui once, but we both spent so long being Fye that I'm not even sure I could tell you whether it was me to begin with."

Kurogane regarded him solemnly. "What happened?" 

"To the other Fye?" His voice took on a wistful note. "Only what I suppose we'd always been waiting for." 

"Waiting for?" 

"We always knew there wasn't space in the world for both of us," said Fye, as if that made any sense. "One way or another, that had to catch up with us eventually. I don't think either of us believed we would ever find peace, so long as we were both trying to share a space meant for one."

Kurogane frowned. "Do I need to tell you how crazy that sounds?" 

"Oh no, I'm quite aware," said Fye, with a wan smile. "It runs in the family, I'm afraid."

"That hasn't stopped you missing him," Kurogane guessed.

"Not for one day," Fye sighed, looking down at his hands. "But our father went through so much to give us a place in the world, and the last thing I said to my brother was when I promised him that I'd make the best of it. I wouldn't give up. I've got the both of us to live for now." Still looking down, he added. "Now I hope that's going to be enough talking on these cheerful subjects for you for one day, because I for one am _well_ past being ready for bed."

Kurogane didn't argue.

* * *

Sakura had hardly stopped looking at Syaoran since they'd got back. Not for reassurance—or not for that alone—but with an expression of wonder, as if seeing him for the first time. Eventually, it had gone on long enough that he had to ask her, "Is something wrong?" and with that the floodgates opened.

"It's your ghosts!" Sakura admitted, all in a tearful rush. "Kimihiro told you about them, didn't he? They've been with you ever since the day we escaped, but they're gone! I thought nothing could ever free you from them, but now they're gone. Really gone!"

It was like all of the supernatural to him, he didn't have the mental framework to understand, but... "That's good, right?"

Sakura sniffled and nodded her head in an awkward motion that wanted to turn into a shake. "It _is_ good, I think. I always wished for a way to make them leave you, but when it happened this way..." she gave a broken sob. "They were what protected you. When you walked into that storm, they were the only thing that stopped the others from tearing you apart. I never liked seeing them, but if they hadn't been there, you..."

Syaoran wrapped his arms around her and held her while she sobbed into his chest. "Sorry for scaring you." Sakura gave a louder sob and clutched at his shirt. "It worked out for the best, right?"

"Those ghosts," he started when she'd calmed down a bit. "It was since we burst out of that place all those years ago, that same Complex?"

"You remember what happened?" asked Sakura, looking up into his eyes.

"Bits and pieces. I didn't really understand what was going on at the time, but the ghosts got angry that day too, right? That was how we made it out. I survived that time, so I thought maybe I could do the same thing again. And it worked—sort of, even if I didn't know how."

Sakura looked slightly comforted, but not wholly ready to forgive the incident. "But the ghosts are gone now. They'll probably never come back. If anything like that happens again..."

"I'll call Shizuka," said Syaoran firmly. "He didn't know if it was going to work either at first, but he made it through on his own. That's his power, or something. I know even I have to rely on others sometimes. And you take care of me too. I won't let myself get hurt for it."

"Promise? Sakura begged, staring into his eyes.

"I promise," said Syaoran, as Sakura wiped her eyes.

* * *

It was a while before Doumeki got the chance to say much of anything to Watanuki. When they got back, his first priority was to make sure Kohane was alright and had been safely put to bed, where she fell asleep almost immediately, bone-tired and heart-worn with relief. Doumeki had half-expected Watanuki would be in the same state, but when they got back to Doumeki's building, Watanuki's first move was to make it very clear that he wasn't going to believe that everything was really over, and Doumeki safe, until he had _personally_ examined every inch of Doumeki's person in intimate detail. Doumeki was not the least inclined to object. If nothing else, sex had to be a far healthier way of using up left over adrenaline than any of Watanuki's usual neurotic behaviour.

It was afterwards, both of them stretched comfortably within arm's reach on the mattress, as relaxed as they'd have any right to be for a while, that Watanuki mustered that accusatory tone Doumeki had become familiar with within hours of his acquaintance, to say, "Do you know what? I'm _not_ surprised."

Doumeki rolled over to face him properly and waited for the elaboration that had to be coming.

"I'm not the least bit surprised you came after me. You, all of you here, are _exactly_ crazy enough to do something like that. And," Watanuki went on, his voice finally cracking under the strain, "you are exactly crazy enough to have made it work."

There were tears squeezing out of the corners of his eyes. He gave a rough, hiccoughing sob. Doumeki stretched an arm out to stroke gently down Watanuki's back as he sniffled into the wad of cloth they used for a pillow. He'd earned the right to this much.

"It did work," Doumeki pointed out when Watanuki was calming down a little.

"You didn't know it was going to," Watanuki muttered indignantly.

"No. Had to be worth a try though."

Watanuki let out a long, deep sigh. "Some day," he said, with an honesty that was all but heart-rending, "I am going to stop wondering how you people could possibly be real, and I'm going to start cursing you for not finding me years ago."

"Not quite there yet?"

"I'm getting close," Watanuki admitted. He pulled his face out from where he'd been laving a dampish patch in the pillow, and rolled on to his side. Somewhere in the process of that motion an arm he'd been lying on landed perhaps not-so-accidentally on the edge of Doumeki's collar bone and trailed slowly down his chest. Watanuki watched with a look of absent concentration—like he still, after all this time, needed physical contact to believe Doumeki was real. "I still don't know how you did it, but I'm not sure I want you to tell me, because I don't think I'll believe you actually pulled it off even then."

"You were the one who told me I repelled evil spirits."

"I didn't tell you to go blundering into murderous ghost-storms. You made that part up on your own, and I refuse to take responsibility. I'm sure it was only your sheer bloody-mindedness that made it work at all." He paused for breath and went on. "I don't know what I'm supposed to make of that Tomoyo-woman either. From what you've been trying _not_ to say about her ever since, I've half an idea this was all some twisted thing with Kurogane from the start and I just got caught in the crossfire."

Doumeki hesitated and had to remind himself that he had no good reason not to let Watanuki know. "She was researching your ghosts."

Watanuki's hand stilled. "Like what they were doing to Kohane..." He shook himself. "I did guess that, but..."

"Not all the same," Doumeki had to admit. "There was a reason no-one was killed when they all went mad. Something she'd done. Didn't catch how it worked."

"I suppose that's worth something." Watanuki allowed.

"She was going to try to convince you that you wanted to stay. Well, all of us, but it was mostly about you."

"How wonderful," Watanuki muttered, in a tone Doumeki couldn't easily interpret. "No more getting stolen. No more living on meat even a scavenger wouldn't touch. No more people getting killed..."

"Would you have been tempted?" Doumeki asked.

"No," said Watanuki firmly. "I can think of no place on earth I would less like to live than _that_."

"I thought so." The nagging spectre of doubt Doumeki hadn't paid any attention to since arriving evaporated, just like that.

"Well, good!" said Watanuki sleepily, snuggled a little closer and went quiet. After a minute, his breathing had evened out enough that Doumeki guessed he'd probably gone to sleep.

Doumeki curled his arm around him a little tighter. Some small corner of his mind, reserved for thoughts he wouldn't usually have entertained when not this exhausted, wondered what he could have done to deserve someone like Watanuki, with all his complications and neuroses, his invisible monsters both real and figurative, embedded in his psyche by a lifetime of abuse. With his powers even he would never entirely understand, and his crushing need to help even the worst of people, just as long as he'd done something that would make a difference.

Probably nothing that balanced out. But he could wait to pay it back. They'd have time.


End file.
